


Running Up That Hill

by Celticas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Flerkin, M/M, Marvel Bang 2020, Marvel Universe Big Bang 2020, Memory Loss, Slavery, Space Opera, Stargate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 49,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27881826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas
Summary: Clint felt his heart breaking. He had always known Phil was too good for him, but to see it was another thing. So he did what he always did, he ran. As far away as he could, he just didn't realise that he wouldn't stop running until he was on the other side of space and had dragged three innocents with him.Stranded on a deserted planet, would they make it home alive?
Relationships: Clint Barton & Jemma Simmons, Clint Barton & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson & Jemma Simmons, clint barton/ phil coulson
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39
Collections: Marvel Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Harishe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harishe/gifts).



> ["Harishe"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27883471)

Running wasn’t the right response. He had known that but he had done it anyway. The second the shrinks had cleared him of Loki’s influence, he had hightailed it directly to Fury’s office. The Director had been sceptical, but in the end agreed to sign him off for missions. Clint didn’t tell the older man he was going to request a long-term mission, they weren’t his usual fare and if Fury thought he was okay for short-term, he should think he was fine for long-term too, but he wasn’t going to take the chance.

The other agents had jumped out of his way as he had hurried down the never-ending corridors of SHIELD HQ. He had been glad that so many of the agents were still weary of him. He had needed to get assigned ASAP and on a plane before Natasha caught wind of him running.

He hadn’t done it in a long time, and it wouldn’t be the first move she would assume he would make, crossing his fingers for a head start had worked. For once in his life, he got away clean. A six-month mission in the depths of Sub-Saharan Africa infiltrating and then arresting a ring of human-traffickers who had expanded into rare and alien objects was just what he had needed to forget that he had gotten his husband killed.

Significantly more tanned, hair almost white from long months in the sun, and the tension finally leached from his back and shoulders, he felt ready to face New York.

Enough time had passed that the agents no longer shied away as he ambled through the concrete and glass hallways, moving from the hanger to the armoury to debriefing. Each stop on his grand tour of the New York office pre-described and calming. The familiar signals to his brain that the mission was done, he would soon be curled up at home with his husband and whatever episodes of whatever reality show Phil... 

He stumbled to a stop halfway down the last corridor that took him from debriefing to Senior Agent Phillip J Coulson’s office. Except it wasn’t his office anymore. It would have been reassigned, space too much at a premium to leave it empty as a shrine to a man most people thought of as a robot and not much more.

Frozen in the hallway as level 6s and 7s grumbled at him to get out of the way, his mind was blank. He couldn’t go forward, there was nothing there for him, but he couldn’t go back either. Their apartment would be cold and dust filled. A stray thought flittered through his head, that he was glad they had cleared out the fridge and trash before leaving for Pegasus, but he wouldn’t find any comfort there. No warm welcome and cold beer.

“Barton?” Sitwell stepped around the corner and caught sight of the man pretending to be a statue. “You okay?” He inched closer, waiting to see which way the wind was going to blow. “I would have thought you would be halfway to the tower by now?”

“The tower?” He asked automatically. What tower?

“Stark, or Avengers Tower? Stark has an open invitation for all of you hero-types.” Sitwell explained. “And-”

“Yeah!” Clint interrupted. “That. I was just about. I’ll be going.” He turned and hurried away before the other man could work out why he had been frozen on the administrative levels and put two and two together. He didn’t want sympathy, especially not from anyone at SHIELD. They all thought he had only lost a mentor, a handler, the man who had recruited him. They had no idea that the centre of Clint’s universe had been ripped away from his by blue eyes and frozen steel.

The damp chill of late October in New York bit through the thin jacket he had thrown on in the locker room. Red and gold lost the battle to the dark, the starless navy of night hours earlier, but there were as many people on the streets of Manhattan has there ever was. People in business suits and boring coats hurried from work to the warm confines of home or their local drinking holes. Others in more sparkles and sleek fabrics were heading out to their Friday night drinks or dinners or parties. The bustle barely blipped on Clint’s radar as little more than obstacles to avoid. Weaving through the crowd he was just another city dweller trying to get where they were going and hopefully not wack anyone with the duffle he had slung over his shoulder. 

The scars from that too bright day still marred the skin of the city he loved, but they were beginning to fade from the pink of freshly closed tissue to the silver-white of age. It hurt less. Or maybe it was just hope returning. The hope that one day, he would also start recovering. Walking the streets he had walked so many times, breathing the sharp smell of car exhaust, garbage, and that mix of spices and snow that was the city in winter.

Pavement was barely visible on the square in front of Stark Tower as workers poured in and out of the building. He would have thought that the area would have been quieter at sometime after 10, but who knew the workings of the scientists and engineers and other workers that kept SI alive. It gave him cover to move closer to the entrance without being seen, not yet ready to be  _ seen.  _ To be recognised.

It was a decision that would hurt and haunt him for much longer than the three seconds that it had taken him to make it.

The difference in light levels between the soft golden hue of the street lights and the violently electric white of the large glass and marble foyer would have had most peoples’ eyes watering, for Clint all it took to adjust to the change was a single blink. He wishes the sight before him was obscured by tears though. Anything to let him lie to himself, because thinking his sight was failing him, the thing he had defined himself by for so long, would have hurt infinitely less than seeing his husband, who was dead, kissing said husband’s childhood hero, obviously just coming back from a date. Both of them were in perfectly tailored suits. Phil was clutching a slightly bedraggled half dozen roses. Clint’s heart was breaking again. He hadn’t known there was anything left to break, but the sharp pain in his chest could only be the final tiny shard he had managed to hold onto, crumbling to dust.

Silently slipping back into the velvety embrace of the night, he decided he was done. Done being Clint Barton, constantly trod on and forgotten. He had thought joining SHIELD and building a life with Phil had changed that, that the rotten Barton luck had finally been expunged. God, legally he wasn’t even a Barton anymore, not that anyone other than him, Phil and a very confused, but well paid Justice of the Peace knew that. The walk back the way he had just come seemed to move out of the regular flow of time, the people around him moving at a snail’s pace while the cars on the road sped by. He could see every flicker of emotion on every face around him. It was too much, especially when he was barely holding onto his own emotions.

Midnight had come and gone by the time he returned to the not so loving arms of SHIELD HQ, but he wasn’t worried that the man he was looking for wouldn’t be there anymore. The lower level agents whispered that Senior Agent Coulson was a robot, always at work and emotionless. The Senior Agents scoffed at the rumours but had their own about Director Fury.

The deserted corridors suited Clint fine. No one to wonder why he was back so soon, or question where he was going. No one to stop him from silently opening and closing the notoriously squeaky door into the Director’s inner sanctum.

“Agent Barton you just got back from a six-month mission that was preceded by the cluster fuck that was New York and what was it? Five months? At Pegasus?” The man didn’t even look up from the stack of papers he was rapidly moving through, his pen a blur of scrawled signatures and initials on documents Clint probably didn’t even have the clearance to be in the same room as. “You have been on the move for over 12 months now. You need a rest. Go to the tower, Romanov will be back in a week or two and Agent Coulson is...” 

“I know.” It was ballsy to interrupt Fury, some might say suicidal. But he didn’t want to hear what  _ Agent Coulson was _ . “I saw him.”

“Clint.” Fury sunk into the large wingback chair behind the even larger desk. It was rare that Fury used his first name. The day he had been recruited, the night a rain drenched former Soviet Assassin had followed him home, and the day after Phil had died. “Phil…”

“Send me to Antarctica.” He interrupted a second time.

The Director stilled, his indomitable aura of intimidation and strength faltered before he could rally himself.

“Antarctica? Are you sure?” It wasn’t an assignment that was just handed out. You either screwed up royally but were still valuable to SHIELD in some way, or you asked for it. Clint didn’t know anyone that had been sent to the icy continent and came back. Parks had gone down three years ago after blowing an op in Morocco and had been completely incommunicado since.

“Yes.”

Fury stared at him for a long time, long enough that never-ending years as a sniper were the only thing that stopped him from fidgeting.

“Okay.” Carefully, the older man, looking his age for the first time in their acquaintance, unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. A single sheet of paper was extracted and put squarely on the chrome and glass tabletop. Black ink swirled across the bottom of the page. “Take that to assignments.” Fury held it out. Such a thin slice of pulped wood that held so much meaning and such irreversible consequences.

The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon when Clint pressed the ignition for a fully loaded Quin jet. The shipment taking up most of the cargo hold hadn’t been scheduled to leave for the frozen base for another few weeks, but why waste the opportunity? See, he could make himself useful. The question of if that usefulness would end the second he landed circled endlessly in the back of his mind, no answer forthcoming from the ether as he pushed the jet further into the deep night.


	2. Chapter 2

“Welcome to Hell!” A too perky and too young voice greeted him as he stumbled off the ramp of the jet and into the chilly concrete hanger.

Bright eyed and bushy-tailed was not how he wanted to be greeted after 72 hours of no sleep, finding out his dead husband was alive and had moved on with his version of a golden Adonis, and then spent seven hours in a tin can, alone, thinking about said husband and golden Adonis.

“Whatever.” He grumbled in the vague direction of the dark haired girl who didn’t look like she could buy a drink without a fake id, let alone be a SHIELD Agent.

“I’m Skye. Come-on. I’ve been told to show you around. First stop the bunks and then you can just page me once you stop being a grumpy pants!”

Before he could stop her, she had scooped up one of his bands and was bouncing out of the large space into a significantly warmer, wood and stone lined hallway. It was a lot more home-ly looking than Clint had ever seen a SHIELD base looking and seemed like a waste of resources. Although, the not as grumpy part of his mind allowed, if the Agents stationed here were here for the rest of their lives, he could understand them wanting to not be living in a military bunker.

“...and that way is the mess.” He tuned back in, finding that she was still rambling. “Turn left and we get to the bunks. Everyone has a double bed, small bathroom and a microwave. You can request certain foods, but you have to do it  _ way _ in advance. This is you. 203. I’m in 214 just down the hall so come knock if you want. Otherwise, this is your pager.” She handed him a small matte black device. “Our room numbers are our call-numbers as well, it also opens your door and any other door you have access to which won’t be many at the moment. Pretty much your bunk, the gym, and the mess. Later.” She shot him a lopsided, two-finger salute and bounced quickly out of sight. 

Waving the small bit of tech she had shoved at him in front of the metal plate to the right of his door got him entry to the chilly room. Just like what little else he had seen of the base, it was nothing like any other SHIELD base. It was cold from long disuse but a thermostat was right next to the light switch, normally the whole base was on one temperature setting and too fucking bad if it was too cold or too warm, the CO had the privilege of setting it.

It was a nice change he tried to convince himself. Trying to convince himself that the change wasn’t as disconcerting as it actually was. Dumping his bags at the foot of the bed, he quickly searched the rest of the room. He did find the usual bugs and passive-heat camera but for now left them alone, there wasn’t anything he was trying to keep secret anyway, but that could change. The other two doors had been closed when he entered, but he found the tiny promised bathroom behind one, barely big enough for him to fit his shoulders into the space. It reminded him of the bathrooms on the old Bus’. The other door led to an even smaller walk in closet, his guide could probably get into her’s, and he could maybe squeeze his way in but didn’t have a hope in hell of getting back out without breaking something. His days of training with the contortionists at Carson’s were long gone.

A quick shower to wash three days of grime off his skin, he gratefully slipped under the covers in a pair of sweats with one of his knives stashed under his pillow. Sleeping in a new place, especially without Tasha or Phil to watch his back was hard. Made even harder by the spike of pain that thinking about the other man brought. He missed his best friend, but his heart and trust were shattered because of his husband. Counting long slow breaths he eventually settled his mind into an approximation of sleep, for most people it was close enough to make that final transition, but for him, it was the space he sent himself to on long, lonely hours on a myriad of rooftops when he wasn’t allowed to sleep.

= + =

“Sleep well?” Skye smirked at him knowingly the next morning.

Dark circles under his eyes made them look bruised and he hadn’t bothered to shave, a golden haze filled the lower half of his face. Glaring at her apparently endless good humour he grunted something he was barely able to identify as a demand for coffee and started down the hallway. He remembered how to get to the branch she had pointed out as leading to the mess, so he wasn’t going to wait for her to try and translate his approximation of a caveman.

“I get it. This place is weird. The energy or something. Simmons says it’s the electricity signature put off by the ‘ring, something about it not being found naturally, so it’s disturbing to the human psyche.” She was rambling again. Although parts of it sounded like she was parroting someone else. “But you get used to it, I promise.”

He didn’t bother trying to explain that it wasn’t a weird energy that had kept him mostly awake all night. It wasn’t any of her, or anyone elses, fucking business. Finally, coffee in hand, she took him to security to upgrade his accesses. And then the tour started.

She introduced people as they passed them or stopped in various offices and labs. So far there had only been about 15 people. Nowhere near enough by his calculations. He had distinct memories of at least 35 being transferred to this base, so how were there less than half that number and most of those weren’t the people he remembered?

“And this is the ring.” She swept her arms open wide, the room obviously the end of the tour. The cavernous room had a few people milling about, and at the other end, a pedestal made from metal and a glowing red dome stood in front and slightly to the side of a ring made from the same metal that stood three times his height.

“What the….” He couldn’t stop his feet from carrying him across the distance. Needing to see better in the half light. Long years of experience with the weird and wacky was screaming at him to be cautious, while the almost forgotten child’s curiosity compelled him forward.

“We don’t really know.” She sounded magnitudes happier about that than she should. “It was discovered in the ice here about twenty years ago after an earthquake formed the hollow. “SHIELD and the USAF have been studying it together ever since. The inside of the ring spins and the linguist thinks those writings,” she waved at the wall behind the colossal object “say that it’s some sort of interdimensional transport? But he’s sort of wacked, so who knows.”

“Right…” Clint wasn’t sure what to make of anything she was saying. He had seen things beyond belief in his twenty years with SHIELD, but an interdimensional transport? Come off it, he wasn’t some wet behind the ears baby agent who had just finished Intro to 084s.

“Whatever.” She shrugged unconcerned. “Simmons!” Her sudden shout echoed oddly, and she was gone before the sound had stopped ringing around the room.

He could see a few people throwing her disgruntled glares.

In the two hours he had been following her around, not once had she mentioned what role he could play within the facility, or even alluded to a CO he could ask. He doubted the base would be run by council or left to fall into complete anarchy, someone had to be in charge and he was going to find them.

There wasn’t all that much base to wander. Quickly he found himself back in the large room staring up at the ring, this close, he could see that it wasn’t as featureless as he had thought. The dim lighting hid small symbols even from his legendary eyes. They weren’t even close to any writing system he had seen, and he had come across a metric fuck-tonne of them, but something was niggling at him. They reminded him of something but he couldn’t place them… Oh well, it would come to him eventually.

Leaving, he decided that in-lieu of actual orders, he would fill his time until lunch in the gym.


	3. Chapter 3

The first month at the Antarctic base passed in a blurr. It turned out the base  _ was  _ run by council, the head scientist from each of the four disciplines at the base and two security experts. He knew the security guys but most of the science team were new to him. Because of the surprise of him turning up on their door-step, they didn’t have a specific role for him to step into. Instead, he trained with the security guys and forcefully instituted a training regime for the scientists, they were in the middle of nowhere and the security guys were outnumbered five to one, in the case of shit hitting the fan, they needed to be able to pull their weight.

Outside of work, he actually found Skye’s irrepressible optimism comforting. She was so different from the agents he had been working with for so long that she didn’t instantly make him think of any of the people he was trying not to think about. Her almost constant shadow Jemma Simmons was another matter, she was the perfect combination of Phil and Rogers that it hurt to be in the same room as her. She had Phil’s straight-backed appreciation for rules and order combined with Roger’s naivete. Slowly, the sharp edges of his hurt were worn down and he was able to put up with her presence, even if he was maybe a little more curt with her than anyone else. 

Leaning back in the mess chair to balance it on the back legs and then shifting until it was standing on a single point of contact, he watched the two girls chatter away as they crossed the small room to where he was halfway through an uninspiring sandwich.

“Did ya hear Clint? There is going to be a Solar Storm tonight, the first night since you got here that will be clear enough to see the Aurora Australis.” Skye threw herself into the chair across from him. “We’re gonna spike some hot chocolate and go out and watch. You should come.” They invited him to whatever they were doing after work regularly. Be it card games or scavenger hunts against the bio lab. So far he hadn’t taken them up on any of the offers.

“I’m okay thanks.” The smile on his face felt weak.

“Agent Barton, at some point you need to start making a life for yourself here. It may not be the life you were expecting, or as exciting as you were used to. But there are good people here and more opportunities than you think.” Simmons reached across the table to lay her hand over his but he pulled back at the last second.

He wasn’t ready to accept comfort.

“What sort of life!” He finally exploded. For weeks he had been second guessing his rash decision to come down to the ass end of the planet and sit around doing nothing in a base where nothing happened. “From what I can see, you all fill your days with silly games and have a stupidly short life expectancy.”

“Life expectancy? What are you talking about, I think the most serious injury we have had in the three years I have been here was a small second degree burn from a bunsen burner accident. Nothing as serious as  _ death _ ,” Simmons said.

“Yeah? Then what happened to Parks? He was only sent down here a few years ago, so where is he?” He whisper shouted the questions, unwilling to draw anymore attention to the small group than he already had, the security guys two tables over were shooting them interested looks and gossip of an argument or lovers spat or whatever dramatic crap they spread would be across the whole base before the end of business.

“Parks? I don’t know any Parks. Well, that’s not true there was one in one of my foster homes, but never any here.” Skye was looking at him like he was crazy. Succumbing to the whispered stories of the ice crazies.

“Clint there were never any Parks here, but that’s not surprising.” Simmons shrugged at him. “‘Antartica’ has been used as a cover for years. Barely 15% of the people supposedly assigned here are actually here. A few are on deep cover, long-term ops and they needed no one to question where they were. Some are dead, and their continued existence needed to be preserved. But most are in a form of witness protection.”

“Oh.” That actually explained a lot. He hoped Parks wasn’t in the ‘actually dead’ category; he had been a good guy. “Excuse me.” Quickly, he escaped the suffocating mess hall. He needed space to think. Once he had got over the anger that had driven him down here, and started thinking about the inconsistencies in the numbers, he had come to the conclusion that people were dying down here in extremely high numbers. It had been comforting in a fucked up, ass-backwards way. This cold, lonely existence wouldn’t be for long. Now, he was facing being down here for the rest of a very long life because no one came back from Antartica.

Except, maybe they did?

Maybe it was just another of those stories, they couldn’t keep people down here indefinitely. Give himself a chance to re-align and then call Fury about leaving. Once he was ready. Once he would be able to look Coulson, not Phil, never again Phil, in the eye and work with him. He had glared through enough psych appointments to know he couldn’t keep dwelling on it. A fresh start, with fresh people.

Leaving his bunk, he went in search of Skye and Simmons. He  _ would _ go and see the Aurora Australis tonight, add it to the wonders of the world SHIELD had given him the chance to experience.

= + =

It turned out to not be horrible. Woo and Percy joined them and they got pleasantly sloshed on heavily spiked cocoa. A few nights later he sat in on the weirdest game of Black Bitch he had ever played that somehow ended with him running through the Ring room in his boxers while the girls hooted and hollered for him.

It was the most fun he had had since he, Coulson, not Phil never again Phil, and Natasha had snuck away from a safe house in Vegas just before everything went to shit at Pegasus and pounced every sleazy card shark or mob man they could find in the seedy underbelly of America’s playground.

Unsure quite how he found himself doing it, he had started hanging out in front of the mysterious metal ring with Skye while she edged her way through the code that was stored on the crystals inside the pedestal. Relearning how to whittle, a common pass-time with Carson’s and even though he had carried a whittling knife and some scraps with him for years, he hadn’t set blade to wood in a long time.

Side by side, they were sitting with their backs against the slightly warm metal, she was focused on her screen, while Clint was again examining the symbols that were still niggling at him. He  _ knew _ he had seen them before. The question was where… Standing, he moved closer and to the other side. That one. He had been looking at, what was it… The stars two nights ago. It was a fucking constellation, they all where. Having made the connection, they started lining up in his brain. The Big Dipper, Ursas Major, Ursus Minor. They were all there.

“Hey. Skye!” He called out to her. “Could it be inter-planetary rather than interdimensional?”

“What?” She asked, too distracted by her own work to pay attention to his question.

Grabbing a small screwdriver someone had left sitting around, throwing it, it hit the exact middle upper edge of her laptop screen with just enough force to almost close it. Any harder and he could have hurt her or the computer and she would never have forgiven him for that.

“What!” She put it aside to stomp across to where he was.

“Does that look familiar to you?” He pointed at the one that he had first recognised, the Big Dipper.

“Sure.” She sassed. “I’ve only been staring at it- all of it and its COMPLETELY FRUSTRATING FRIENDS FOR SIX MONTHS!” She shoved him and stomped away. “I’m going for coffee.”

“Wait.” He chased after her. “Stop and look at it. Or at this.” He snatched a piece of paper and pen, quickly jotting down just the points of the symbol, not the lines. He held it up.

She glared at him, and then at the paper. “No.” She said mulishly.

“Come on. Actually look at it.” He waggled the paper.

“Fiine.”

“Wait… That’s, that’s- the- the- um. Star thingy. Constellation.” She snatched the paper from him and returned to the ring. Holding it up to compare. “Holy shit, Clint.”

It wasn’t exactly the same, his stars were a little lopsided. But it was still recognisably the same thing.

“Interplanetary… The coding sequence has a main user input that allows seven symbols… You gotta know where you are going and where you are coming from… Seven.” She raced out of the room, shouting for Simmons.

He followed.

= + =

In an hour, the steady dependable routines of the base were blown apart. Almost everyone was gathered in rooms and around computer screens, shifting their work around to fit the new revelation. 

It only took two days for Skye to re-code something and hack that other thing. Computer’s had always been Tasha’s job on missions. The whole base was gathered in the Ring room when she finished typing with a flourish, waiting to see what happened.

With a groan and the same eerie orange glow from the pedestal, the rings started spinning. A combination lock on a vault to who the fuck knows. Collectively a hundred people held their breaths. The clunk of the first chevron selecting and locking the only sound in the room.

Then the second.

And the third.

And the fourth.

Each time a symbol was selected and the ring started spinning again the tension increased by magnitutes. What was going to be waiting for them?

The seventh symbol thunked into place and an explosion filled the room with a sideways geyser of water. The water pulled back into a puddle that was defying every law of gravity and physics that Clint knew, and he knew a lot of them. The pale blue glow of the puddle and the orange-red of the pedestal and ring mixed in the shifting steam. A slowed down rave.

“Send it through.” Imahara, the head of security commanded.

A small robot whirred to life, a tiny camera attached to the top and a long lead spooling out behind it as it trundled towards the unknown.


	4. Chapter 4

The collective breath of a hundred people gusted out as the first images flickered onto the screen in front of Skye. She had patched her work station up to two large monitors she had pilfered from the break room so that she didn’t have people pushing and shoving to see. The one time he had tried to watch her screen over her shoulder, she had spent the whole time twitching every time he lent even a tiny bit too close. He wasn’t surprised she had taken preemptive steps to keep everyone away from her.

The first images from another world that a human had ever seen was oddly,  _ boring _ . Green grass shifted below a stone platform for hundreds of yards before a line of trees cut the view. It could have been anywhere in Europe or North America. It was a vista Clint had seen countless times, in dozens of countries. 

Maybe all of them had gotten the translation wrong.

“GPS?”

Apparently someone had thought about that.

“Nope. None of our satellites are pinging it and I put a trace amount of radioactive material that would definitely show up. Nothing.” Skye flicked through a dozen screens, checking every system she had stuffed into the tiny mechanical recon drone.

Well shit. Maybe they had sent the little bugger to another planet.

A swirl of voices echoed across the chamber as every scientist present demanded access to the readings she was taking. Carefully, he extracted himself and left them to it. The grass was boring and the trees weren’t any more interesting. He could ask Skye or Simmons for any break through later over dinner, or whichever meal they turned up to next as he didn’t think they would remember to eat in the next 48 hours unless he bugged them about it. Which was all kinds of ironic, but he had experience with managing a work-aholic. Looking after two should be as easy as one.

= + =

For a week the base was in up-roar. They sent through two more drones, one flight capable, to take longer readings, but everything they found told them yes they had sent shit to another planet but there wasn’t anything to find.

The initial excitement dwindled as quickly as it had come. The routines of science and life settling back into their well worn patterns. Clint spent as many hours in the gym and the ring room as he always had, chatting to Skye when she was willing to be distracted, or staring at the rippling blue pool when she wasn’t. For the half hour that seemed to be the limit of the rippling pool’s ability to stay stable, she was focused completely on getting as much data as she could, but between dials she chatted and grumbled as much as she always had as she sent the data packets through to the people that wanted them.

A new batch of readings from the flying-drone had just been sent to the various scientists and the ring had been shut down, sending the room into momentary darkness as eyes needed to adjust to the change in light levels. Although Clint’s adjusted quickly and the steam problem had been resolved with a hard setting foam the chemists had liberally deployed after the third time they had turned on the ring and ended up shivering from the rise in moisture.

In the darkness, a glow that shouldn’t have been there easily caught his attention. Movement as the ring started spinning again.

“Skye?”

“Yeah?” She asked, distracted by the readings she was sorting through.

“Are you dialing?” He stepped closer to the ring, but kept out of where the watery explosion would obliterate anything in its path. They had learnt that lesson the second time they had dialed, a very expensive piece of machinery that Clint still wasn’t clear on the purpose of, had been cut off a foot from the ground.

“No.” He could hear her standing up, the rolly chair she used gliding across the smooth floor.

Slamming his hand onto a security panel, he activated the whole base alert. Instantly an alarm began blaring, echoing painfully off walls and floors. The stomp of feet and puzzled shouts was a chaotic undercurrent. The security guys would be racing for the armouries, and the labs would all be locking down.

Clint sprinted across the room and dived for the weapons cache he had squirreled away next to Skye’s desk. It was the room he spent the most time in and the most likely place for shit to go sideways aside from the hanger. He sure as shit wasn’t going to let the closest weapon, aside from the pistol he always had on his hip, be the armoury, two doors and a corridor away.

“Get down.” He ordered Skye and Simmons, too many people were streaming through the doors for them to make their way out. He planted himself in front of them, bow held at his side and arrow on the string, ready to be drawn and fired in an instant.

The final chevron clunked into place and the expected explosion of water and light filled the room. Clint turned his head just enough to keep himself from being dazzled and was back, focused before the whirlpool had settled. Every security agent and a few of the more competent scientists had filled the room, a forest of matte black pistol and semi-automatic barrels pointing at whatever might come through.

Nothing they could have done prepared them for the next two seconds.

A ball rolled almost lazily through the water, coming to a spinning stop twenty feet into the room. Every person present held their breath, waiting. Half of them had their eyes completely focused on the ball and the rest were split between the ball and the ring. Clint was watching the ring, he could see the ball in his peripheral.

Woo stepped forward carefully, inching closer to the alien tech and further away from the defensive line. Clint moved to cover him and keep him out of his lines of fire. Skye stepped out as well, Simmons still behind her but moving, a hand wrapped in the other girl’s shirt. Of all the non-security personnel, the hacker had come the farthest with a weapon in her hand, her hand-to-hand was still shit, but she could hit whatever target she was aiming at 94.3% of the time which was better than some active field Agents Clint knew, or had known, back in New York.

He might prefer Tasha or Coulson, not Phil never again Phil, at his back but Skye was quickly becoming a close third.

The four of them moved in careful synchronicity. Woo closer to the orb. Clint sideways to cover the other man. Skye clearing her shot of Clint. And Jemma, a hesitant half-step behind, unwilling to be left behind.

Arrayed in a half-circle to the left of the orb it lit up. A pulsing quicksilver light that ran like liquid out of a tiny hole in the top and flowed, rippling down the sides, following the lines and circles of the design that had been deeply incised along the whole surface.

“Woo..” He didn’t like this, trying to urge caution.

The flowing, not quite metal filled the engravings and over-flowed. The ball was completely encased in rippling light. It flashed and then exploded. Light and metal shooting out in a perfect circle. It slammed into him with more force then he would have thought possible. The breath pushed out of his lungs and his feet lifted from the ground.

He passed out before he could feel the punished meeting with the cold concrete.

= + =

He was going to be sick. Nausea swelled and overwhelmed him. It was a feeling he was intimately familiar with which didn’t stop him from throwing up everything he had eaten in the last week as his whole body protested the sudden movement. His head pounded in time with his heart rate that was twice the speed it should have been and his mouth tasted like someone had taken a piss in it and then left him out to dry in the Saharan sun.

The soft, coolness of the grass beneath and beside him was a relief once he was able to collapse back down onto it, his body done expelling his stomach content for the moment.

Grass tickled the back of his neck. Sluggish thoughts rapped painfully at his mind. Something was wrong. Out of place. Grass. There wasn’t any grass in Antarctica. There was snow, and ice, and more snow and in a few god forsaken places there was stone scoured clear of snow and ice by howling winds.

Prying his eyes open he glared up at the red sky above him. Blinking to try and clear the grit from his eyes before he levered himself upright and looked around. Each move made his head pound harder, the concussion he was trying to ignore refusing to sit down and shut the fuck up.

He had never been in this field, but he knew it. He had been looking at versions of it under an alien sun, stars, and moons for weeks, just from the otherside of a computer monitor. Apparently, it wasn’t good enough that he was a certified Alien Invasion Stopper™ he could add interplanetary traveller to his resume if he ever needed to write one. So far he hadn’t. Unsurprisingly circus performers-cum mercenary-cum Federal Agents never needed to submit a CV to HR.

Just beside his right hand his bow was lying dust covered in the grass, arrow still knocked. One of the many lumps under his back turned out to have been his quiver.

The light was disappearing quickly, wherever they were sunset didn’t last long. They. Why did he think they? What had he seen?

There, a flutter of purple and red fabric that he had last seen on Skye. One of her endless supply of flannelette shirts. Stumbling to his feet, stopping to throw up again, he shambled through the grass and dropped to his knees beside her.

“Skye?” He croaked, checking for a pulse. The skin beneath his fingers jumped and twitched erratically, the trip through the ring and probably whatever the fuck that orb had done to them before that, was playing hell on her body as well. “Skye, wake up.” He shook her shoulder. “Come on. You gotta wake up, we just made history and it’s no fun to do that alone.”

“God, shut up.” She groaned, rolling away from his insistent poking. Sitting up, she blinked at him, at the two moons that were beginning to rise to his right and directly in her sight-line, turned towards him and threw up.

“Gross.” He fell backwards, over his heels to get away from the mess but she still managed to splatter his cargo pants with the meatloaf she had eaten at lunch.

The analytical part of his brain told him that according to the half digested state of her last meal, they couldn’t have been unconscious for long. The rest of his brain told the analytical part of his brain to shut the fuck up because that was disgusting and now he wanted to vomit again.

“Where are we?”

“Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore.” With a careful hand on her back, he assisted her in getting up right. He knew it wouldn’t help her figure out where they were, but if it was him he would feel better for not being flat on his back.

“This is the planet.” She gazed around in wonder, eyes wide.

“Yep.” He agreed.

“The planet on the other side of the ring.”

“Yes.” He agreed, again.

“A different planet, as in not Earth.” Her wide eyed wonder was starting to look more than a little panicked.

“That’s right.” There wasn’t really anything he could do but agree with her.

“Is it just us? I mean Woo was closer than we were, did he get sucked through or whatever?”

Actually, that was a really good question. Making sure she could keep herself upright, he got to his feet with a groan, every muscle protested the movement. The thick grass reached just above his knees and stretched in an almost unbroken sea in every direction for two hundred meters. Behind him a ring very similar to the one back on Earth stood proudly in the rising moonlight. Something in Clint told him that was where it belonged, not hidden away under mountains of concrete and ice. 

There was a divot in the grass a little further away on the other side of Skye from where he had started, and one back beyond the bed of compressed plantlife that he had woken up in. “Maybe.” He finally told her. “Can you stand?” He held a hand down to help pull her to her feet if she could.

“Maybe.” She repeated sarcastically, but accepted the help. Her groans were less than his, damn twenty year olds with their lack of wear and tear.

“Over there. Be careful.” He pointed out the closer depression and tapped the pistol she still had a hand wrapped around.

She nodded her understanding, getting a better grip on the weapon. It was impossible to move through the rustling grass silently and she wasn’t trained for it, so he followed her progress with one ear as he edged through the greenery back the way he had come.

A black clad back was the first sign of whoever was in the grass. He recognised the fabric, the almost not there threads of grey shot through the black, it was a SHIELD tee-shirt. In fact it was the same style of tee-shirt Woo had been wearing. It was the same shirt.

“Woo?” Clint felt for, and quickly found a pulse, just in time for a strong hand to wrap around his wrist to try and wrench his shoulder out of its socket. The move was probably meant to throw Clint over the previously prone man, but it had been a favourite of Coulson, not Phil never again Phil, and Clint had been successfully parrying it for years. Woo was the one that found himself flying.

“Sorry. Sorry.” He shuffled through the grass to Woo’s new resting place.

“I hate you.” Woo coughed, no venom or conviction behind the words.

“Yeah, yeah. Love you too man. You okay?” The same way he had helped Skye up was offered but not taken. Woo’s pride having him groan his own way upright.

“Fine.”

Clint wasn’t inclined to believe him when he had to stop with his hands on his knees to throw up, but wasn’t going to be picky. After all, he had had the exact same response when returning to consciousness. 

“Clint! I have Jemma.” The two men turned to see the two women approaching, the biochemist’s arm thrown over the hacker’s shoulders. The small Brit didn’t look close to steady on her feet. “I don’t think we should stay here.”

It was a legit response, and explained why Skye was half dragging her best friend around.

“Right. Let’s head for the tree line, find somewhere to camp for the night.” 

= + =

The first night on a new planet saw the four humans catching fits and starts of sleep. One of them was meant to always be awake, watching for danger, but every rustle of leaves or creak of a branch in the wind that picked up at midnight had them all jumping. Waiting to see what new danger was going to jump out of the deep darkness to fuck up their lives even more. By dawn, the four of them were all awake, back to back watching the trees.

“I hate this.” Skye hunched her shoulders in, pressing in tighter to the others to try and sap some extra heat. The wind had brought a chill that her light jacket was no match for.

“Same.” Simmons agreed. “Did anyone see anything that might have been the pedestal?”

“No.”

“Nope.”

“Sorry.”

“Spread out. We might have missed it in the grass.” Clint ordered, if no one had been in the area and using the pedestal for a while it could be completely covered.

They moved, still within sight and easy shouting distance, they combed the large field. Woo and Clint moved in a standard grid working methodically. Skye started just wandering but quickly caught onto the pattern the two men were making. Simmons though, she started out wandering and continued winding a squiggly line down the right hand edge of the field. If they were on earth it would be south, the sun still rising directly in front of them, but who knew what the magnetic field on the unknown planet was. 

“I think I have something.” Skye called out. 

The other three turned and moved directly for her, a small pile of rocks at her feet. The only blemish in the otherwise smooth ground. She had bent and was shifting the top layer, uncovering a round ring of metal that Clint knew the shape of well. It was an exact match for the pedestal that Clint and Skye had spent hours lent against. 

“Shit.”

They stood around the ring for long silent minutes, each of them lost in thought. Clint couldn’t tell exactly what each of them were thinking but he wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same as him. How were they going to get home? Was it even possible? They had no idea where they were, or how they were going to survive. The worst part was, a tiny part of him didn’t care about getting home. Not for himself. He had nothing to get back to. Natasha and Phil, fuck it! Coulson! Natasha and Coulson had been his life, the only family he had wanted to acknowledge in a very long time. Nat would miss him, but she was pragmatic enough to know things went wrong and getting attached was a sure-fire way to getting hurt. Love was for children afterall.

Phil. Coulson. Whoever. Clint had no idea what he would think or feel. If he had been asked last year, he would have  _ known _ . He would have been certain of the other man’s grief. But now? After faking his death and then apparently easily moving on from Clint, who knew?

Realistically, there wasn’t anything to be done about it. He wanted to find a way home for Skye, Simmons, and Woo. But so far they hadn’t seen any sign of life, not even the chirping of crickets or other insects in grass or trees. No birds filling the sky with movement and sound.

Surviving had to be their first priority. Water, they had been here almost 18 hours, the days shorter than on earth. Three more days on this planet without water and worries about getting home would be moot. Three weeks and they will have starved.

“Let’s go.” He whispered, unwilling to break the unnatural silence. Everything in him was shivering at being out in the open without animal life moving around him. Silence this absolute should only be when a predator was on the hunt and even then there would be some insect unworried, or animal too stupid to recognise the danger. It set every hair on his body standing up and on alert waiting for the shooting to start.


	5. Chapter 5

The forest took them almost a full day and night to walk through, a single thin stream of fresh water just over halfway through sating their thirst. Woo had made a water pouch out of a couple of ziplock bags he had stuffed into one of his cargo pockets. They hadn’t found anything they had thought might be edible by the time they got out of the trees, all of them starting to feel the sharp pinch of hunger. Another field of grass and wildflowers on the other side. No civilisation. No obvious food. No water. 

Stopping in the shade of the last line of trees, they dropped exhausted to the ground. Walking nonstop wasn’t going to get them anywhere if they didn’t know where they were going. Leaving the other three on the ground, Clint shimmied up the tallest tree he could find, thirty meters along the tree line from where they had emerged.

Three quarters of the way up, he had to stop, the trunk too thin to support his weight. He looked out at the horizon, but it was wrong. Like so much else of the god forsaken planet they had found themselves on, instead of the just over five kilometers that he could normally see, it was only half of that, maybe. The curvature of the planet being so much smaller than Earth. It made sense, he guessed. Astronomy and geology weren’t his areas, but physics was. A smaller object will spin faster, like a figure skater pulling her arms in.

Aside from the closer horizon, the next swathe of woodland was cut through just before it met the horizon, the silver-blue glint told him there was water, a river probably. And if there was going to be life anywhere, it was going to be close to a significant water source. The thin stream in the forest had been too small to support life.

Glancing back the way they had come he could just see the end of the trees on the field they had started in. The ring was hidden. So another day at least until they reach the river, and no guarantee that there was any other water between them and it. They had collected enough to get them there, but not if they wasted time.

Dropping from the tree, grabbing branches here and there to halt his fall, he descended in seconds.

“Anything?” Skye was the first to speak up, she had moved up to rest against the tree he had climbed and he missed dropping on her ankle by millimeters. Neither of them flinched, his foot could have brushed her skin and he still would have been sure of his footing.

“A river I think. Another day’s walk away.” They needed to move but taking an hour to rest was only going to let them move faster.

“Anything else?” Simmons called, sat up from where she had sprawled, further down.

“More trees.”

She fell back to the ground. None of them had really thought he was going to say anything else. If he had seen signs of life, he would have led with that, not what might be water hours away. But it still hurt. Another tiny chip in the miniscule flame of hope they were desperately holding onto.

“We’ll head out in two hours. Half hour watches. I’ll take first.” Clint ordered. The comfort of having someone watching their backs rather than any real belief there was any danger was why they kept up the routine. 

Silently the other three found a soft piece of dirt to curl up on, the two girls together and Woo, a little further away, facing back into the forest while Clint watched the unknown quantity of the field. 

= + =

“Yes.” Simmons dropped to her knees, the water soaking into the fabric where she landed with a splash in the rapidly running river.

The water was warm, steam rising into the cooler air.

“Simmons. Wait.” The water would only be that warm if it had a heat source, volcanic activity most likely. The poisonous chemicals that went along with that could be a problem.

Ripping up a handful of grass, he dipped it in the river. The water eddies and swirls around the grass but otherwise there was no reaction. Letting it fall into the water, he dipped the tip of his pinkie in. No pain or even discomfort. Bringing the tiniest drop to his tongue all he could taste was pure spring water.

As far as he could tell it was clean.

“Okay.”

All of them scooped up handfuls, slaking their thirst. Skye was the first to finish, splashing her face, hair and arms with water to wash away the dirt and sweat of days of travel by foot.

“Kra wana sslyth*?” A voice called from the shadows.

The quartet spun, eyes searching the darkness. Clint spotted them, it, the owner of the voice first. Maybe as tall as Skye’s stomach, their skin was such a deep purple, the shadow of the trees turned them black. Three eyes blinked on a sharp face. One eye looking forward and the other two to the side, a mix of predator and prey.

“Kra wanna sslyth!?” They were more insistent this time, waving what Clint  _ knew _ was a weapon at them. The sleek, dark metal was the perfect size to be the barrel of a gun. 

“I’m sorry, we don’t know what you are saying.” Simmons spoke up, her natural curiosity overriding common sense. Hands wide to show she wasn’t carrying her own weapon, she took a single step closer.

The barrel of the alien gun wavered, flicking from Clint the largest of the group, to Simmons.

“Arwo quanti Ethy sslyth? Wo quanerus?” 

They jabbed the weapon at them during what sounded like a second question, emphasising the point. Even having no basis to understand the words, Clint recognised the suspicion and fear on their face.

“I’m sorry, we don’t know what you are saying.” Simmons said again.

“Be careful.” Woo urged quiety, his hand resting loosely on his thigh holster, but not drawing. Unwilling to increase the tension already simmering dangerously.

A blast of energy rang out from further up the river bank on the same side as the SHIELD agents, vaporising the water below its path as it shot towards them and the other creature in front of them. Clint tackled Simmons to the ground just in time, the blast singeing the very tips of his hair and the heat scorching his back. The creature wasn’t as lucky. The blast took them directly in the chest, sending them flying to slam into the bole of a large tree twenty feet away. Clint could hear bones cracking on impact, but their eyes were already glazing over. Dead before they touched the ground. 

“Stay down.” He could hear the retort of Woo’s weapon already trying to pick off whoever was shooting at them.

Commando crawling, he turned around and settled into a stable firing position. Laying so low to the ground was about the worst position to fire a bow from, but until he knew where he was aiming and what they were aiming at, he wasn’t going to give them any more of a target than he could help and the closest cover was the tree line twenty feet away. A good retreat point if things dragged out, but no guarantee it was any safer than being out in the open.

Scanning the far bank, he waited for movement. A twitch of a hand or foot to give the enemy’s location away.

There.

An arrow sung through the air, a high counterpoint to the bass of Woo’s gun and the sigh of the bowstring. It was a symphony of death Clint was very familiar with, even if his normal playing partners were farther away than comprehension allowed.

The form that fell under his arrow, was as unlike them as the black-purple predator-prey had been. But in entirely different ways. Mottled pale blue skin was only visible on hands that had too many fingers. The rest of the figure was covered by a dark green material, alien camouflage. Whatever their face looked like was hidden from view by the reflective glass of a full-face helmet. It reminded Clint of a mix between different deep sea diving technology, the neoprene suits of modern divers with the bulbous helmet of the first ocean explorers.

Another twitch was followed by a blast of power. It caught Woo in the shoulder, his scream and the scent of burning flesh filled the river basin. Another camouflage clad figure stepped out from the trees, dodging the arrow Clint sent in retaliation. Woo gasping for breath around the pain only a few feet from Clint, but too far away for him to help.

A ball that looked achingly familiar arched through the air, stopping to hang motionless at the zenith of its climb.

The world held its breath.

Slowly and then gaining speed, it began to spin. Light spilling down its sides and then blooming outwards. Clint looked away, in the second before closing his eyes, he met the dead-eyed stare of Woo. The image of the deadman’s gaze imprinting itself in his mind before he passed out again.


	6. Chapter 6

Waking up nauseous with his head swimming in confusion and loss of time was not a feeling he wanted to get accustomed to. Clint knew if he  _ really  _ wanted to avoid it, he shouldn’t have stayed with SHIELD after the first time, but there it was. He had already been smitten with his handler and with no other options except death or jail, and really those weren’t options he was interested in exploring further, he had stayed with the organisation. And he had stayed, and he had stayed, and he had stayed. Until his whole life was SHIELD and he could barely remember a time before it. A time before Natasha and Phil.

Even with his eyes closed, he knew they had moved again. No longer in the river clearing. He was getting sick of that as well. He would much prefer if he woke up in the same place he was rendered unconscious, thank you very much. The light was different. Not night-time different, but colour spectrum different. The Forest Planet, as his mind had decided to dub it at some unknown point, had been very similar to North American light. Blue, but sort of washed out as if the wide open spaces and fresh air diluted the colours. The light here was warmer, skewed towards the red end of the spectrum. Once, Clint would have preferred the cooler blue, a reminder of Phil’s blue eyes. Now it was the colour of Loki, of betrayal, both his own of SHIELD, and Coulson’s of their vows. He welcomed the red.

Without anything in his stomach to throw-up, he breathed deeply and sat up. Commanding his unruly stomach to stay where it was. “Urg.” He groaned.

“I hear you.” Skye moaned.

“I hate you.” Simmons muttered.

Clint couldn’t help but grin, if they had the energy to complain they weren’t concentrating on not dying. Unlike the last time, they weren’t in an unoccupied clearing. A large cement room stretched around them, dusty hanging lights were the source of the red light. Long lines of canvas cots stretched from the quiet corner they had been put in. Further down the room here and there a few of the cots were occupied, some with sleeping forms, others with people, things, awake and murmuring to their own companions.

“Where are we?” Skye was sitting up already.

His head still pounding, he barely stopped himself from snapping at her. By the looks of it, she had been awake longer than him.

A tiny drop of red against her otherwise clean skin caught his attention. “You’re bleeding.” His mind hadn’t quite caught up with their surroundings yet.

“Where?” Skye wiped a hand under her nose and looked for a tell-tale red smear.

“There.” He waved his hand in the general direction of her head. “Ear. No. Behind. There.” It was only a pinhead of blood, but it hadn’t been there before and she didn’t have any other marks from either the firefight or whatever had happened to them while they were being transported.

She gazed down at the bright red on her fingertip for a long time. The blood was fresh. Finally looking up, she pointed the stained digit at him. “You have one too.”

Dragging his hand across his neck and up under his ear, his hand came away bloody.

“Huh.”

Before they could discuss the tiny injuries further, a figure stepped into the beam of light that had been pointed squarely at them. Her skin was the same mottled blue as the figures on the Forest Planet, but they were taller and slimmer. Dressed in a brown shift that almost brushed the floor, they also had a strip of cloth tied around their face covering what was probably their nose and mouth.

“Good. I see you are awake and unharmed. Those brutes often do not know their own force.” The voice sounded female, or at least it was high and lilting although there was a second layer of sound that reminded Clint of the whale songs one of the therapists at SHIELD had liked to play. His assignment to them hadn’t lasted long. Doctor Garner, the doc he had been assigned to after making Doctor Rothery cry, and he had gotten along much better.

How could he understand her/them?

“How are you speaking English?” Skye asked at the same time.

“I am not. You were all injected with a nano-translator upon arrival. Why you did not already have one, I do not know.” She/they tutted at them. “Although your language system is very rare, only one other native speaker. Be that as it may, I am Tzqua the Section Organiser. You will be assigned to me once released from quarantine.” She/they swept off before any of them could say anything.

“Well, that explains the blood.” Simmons filled the silence.

“We’re never getting home are we?” Skye’s voice was as small as he had ever heard it. 

He didn’t have an answer for her, part of him said no they weren’t ever going to get home. But that was the part of himself that was still hurting so much. At least he hoped it was. And he wouldn’t give it a voice. Especially when it would also crush her completely. Both of them, Skye and Simmons, were counting on him. The adult, god save him.

Instead he achingly climbed to his feet, shuffled to Skye’s bed and scooched her over to drop down next to her, pulling her in close. “We’ll be okay.” It was the only reassurance that he could give her that was true. He would make it true.

= + =

Clint’s internal clock told him they spent two days in the large dorm-like room. What that equated to on this world he didn’t know. Without external light, it was impossible to tell. On the third day, Tzqua returned. They had been the only being to interact with them so far, their meals being delivered on little robots that reminded Clint of nothing so much as tall roombas.

“Come.” They swept in and then out again, expecting the three of them to follow.

In lieu of anything else of interest happening in the grey room, they had discussed their plans at length. Until they got an idea of where they were, why they were here, and the general lay of the land, they were going to go along with what was happening.

To an extent.

If they were together and none of them were being hurt or in danger of being hurt, they would comply. In that spirit, and with nothing to bring with them, Clint bow having disappeared before he woke up, which he had already bitched about at length, they followed the tall, blue being out of the room like little ducklings. Heads swivelling trying to take in every little detail, trying to place themselves within the new community they had landed in.

Down a long corridor made from the same grey concrete as the dorm, the three of them followed Tzqua. Pushing open a set of dull metal doors, a wider world of grey concrete opened to their eyes. The new space was bustling, almost claustrophobically busy after the empty space of the dorm. Just from the doorway, Clint could see beings of every size and shape, with a range from no appendages to too many to count in the crowd, and skin of literally every colour of the rainbow including one giant with skin so black it seemed to suck the light out of everything around it and a tiny flying thing that was literally glowing.

He wouldn’t be surprised if that species had visited Earth at some point and spawned the many myths about fairies.

“Holy shit.” Skye breathed, giving voice to Clint’s circling inner monologue.

“Keep up.” Tzqua snapped at them.

Clint assumed their facial expression was of annoyance, maybe.

Sweeping a path through the crowd, the three of them hustled to catch-up and stay in Tzqua’s wake. Whatever their position was, it was enough to have everyone else jumping out of their way. It was a punch in the gut for Clint, reminding him of the way junior Agents almost shat themselves trying to get out of Phil, shit,  _ Coulson’s _ way.

Wherever they were being led was a fair distance through the complex. Even with his finely honed sense of direction and a visceral need to be able to retrace his steps, Clint was finding himself missing count of corridors, rooms, and doorways that looked exactly the same. The only distinguishing feature was that the further they moved from the dorm and the large first room was the slow degradation of the construction, the thinning of the crowd, and the beings’ more ragged appearance. Poverty looked the same on every planet apparently.

“This will be your new home.” Tzqua shoved open a door, having to put their shoulder into it to get the metal to screech open. “Fix that.” They ordered before leaving them there, standing in the middle of the dirty corridor.

“New blood,” A voice rasped from behind them. A finger poked into Skye’s arm. “Soft. Not going to last long.” The newcomer tried to poke Clint next. Spinning, he grabbed the thick digit and bent it back sharply, stopping at the point he could feel the bone start to creak.

“Try it and you’ll lose the finger,” Clint growled. He knew with every fibre of his being that this wasn’t the sort of place he wanted to appear weak and he would make it abundantly clear that the two women were under his protection.

The creature grinned up at him. A double row of tiny, sharp teeth was bared. It was more of a threat display than a friendly expression.

Using the captive finger, Clint pushed them away from their little group. “Fuck off.” He watched the creature walk off. He wanted to shuffle the girls into their new home and keep the hostile world out, but he wouldn’t run. Wouldn’t show that sort of weakness.

Only after meeting the eye of each of the other beings loitering in the corridor did he allow himself to wave Skye and Simmons into the only questionable safety available to them. Putting his whole body into it, he got the door almost closed. As much as it galed him, he was going to have to do what Tzqua told him and fix it. Hopefully someone would give him a clue about where he could get the things he needed to do that.

The second darkness engulfed them, Simmons broke. Tears silently running down her face. Clint left her to it for a minute while Skye wrapped her up in a tight hug, whispering words into her hair.

Feeling along the wall, he found what felt like a light switch. “Careful of your eyes.” He warned them before toggling the switch. He needn’t have bothered. The light was barely enough to chase away the dark, the large bulb giving off barely more than a single tealight back home.

Two mattresses were shoved up against each other along one of the walls, a metal toilet was bolted to the other wall. Between the two, there was barely enough room for the three of them to stand together, he had been lucky to not smash his shins against the toilet or trip on the mattresses.

“Home sweet home.” He muttered to himself, quietly enough that the two girls didn’t hear him.

= + =

An hour or so after they had entered their room, the light died above them. Flickering before going out. Moving carefully in the small space, Clint edged the door open and peaked out. The corridor was dark as well, and he couldn’t see any of the lights that had been shining from underneath other doors.

“Stay here.” He whispered over his shoulder.

Easing out the door, tiny fingers wrapped into his shirt. He looked back with the intention of ordering Skye back into the room. Two pairs of eyes blinked up at him.

“No one left behind.” Simmons whispered.

All of them knew that wasn’t right, they had left Woo behind. However unintentionally.

Rolling his eyes, he huffed a sigh and started inching along the wall. The next corridor was as empty as the one their room was on. Reaching the next turn, he glanced down the three options. Two of them were exactly the same as those behind them. The third looked more promising for finding information on where they were.

Leading the two women down the slightly better lit corridor, he had to shove all three of them into a thin storage closet when voices echoed from the direction they had been heading.

“...new arrivals got assigned to Tzqua.” One voice growled.

To Clint they sounded unhappy.

“She always gets the new ones. Her Father pulling strings….” A second voice, lighter than the first answered, but was still as unhappy.

They moved out of hearing range quickly. He waited for a count of sixty before creeping back out. For hours they crept through the dimly lit corridors, the only beings they saw were of the same species of Tzqua. They were obviously the dominant species here, in charge of whatever the sprawling complex was for.

Hearing snippets of information each time they had to hide was good, allowing him to start stitching together a view of the social structure of the place. Tzqua was well placed, but it was more a benefit of whoever her family was than anything she had done. Most of them didn’t like her, but were willing to suck up. A person called Oert seemed to be liked by all and admired by some. The social butterfly of the complex.

Eventually, they circled back to their own corridor, their door the only one even partially open in all of the corridors that Clint thought were the residential areas. The door screeched as he pulled it closed. Or maybe the slight squeal just sounded louder in the small space and riding on their anxiety.

“I’ll take first watch.” Clint settled himself into a corner where he could watch Skye, Simmons and the door.

“Don’t be stupid.” Skye shoved him, slumping down pressed against his side. “No one is coming through that door without waking up the demons in hell.”

She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit his shoulder. He left her there for a little while before shifting her down, if she stayed in her original position for too long she wouldn’t be able to move her neck tomorrow. She wasn’t wrong, he knew, no one was coming through that door unannounced. Yawning he allowed himself to let go.

= + =

The light flashing to life above them the next morning.

“I hate life.” Skye muttered from her awkward sprawl.

In their sleep, Skye had moved, pressing herself into Clint, her face wedged between him and the dirty mattress.

“No you don’t.” Simmons argued from the other mattress. “You just hate mornings.”

Clint barely stifled a laugh.

“UP!” Someone wrapped against the metal, the knocking echoing around the space long after they had moved on to the next door.

Together they stepped out into the corridor, nothing to keep them occupied in the barren room. A small crowd was already flowing out of the rest of the rooms, filling up the space. Most of the people were more ragged looking than the three of them, but not by much. A hush flowed across the crowd, starting from the further end of the corridor.

“We have been assigned to sector 19 today. Follow.” Tzqua’s voice filled the space the sound of a hundred odd people had previously barely touched.

Everyone started shuffling forward. Following Tzqua and passing between two others of her people. They were smaller than Tzqua, not as strong looking. As a person passed them, they shoved a pouch and wrapped bundle at them. 

Clint examined it closely before unscrewing the pouch. All he could smell was slightly metallic water, and a tiny sip proved him right. Iron laden water coated his tongue. Screwing the top back on, he flipped open one of the flaps of fabric with a twist of his wrist. What looked like bread inside. Tapping it against the metal top of the pouch it was hard as rock. True trail rations.

“Hardbread.” Simmons had been watching him examine the food.

“Yup.”

The crowd shuffled out of the corridors they had explored the night before. From concrete, to rough hewn rock, to a hole through a mountain that was barely held up by wooden struts every few feet. 

Tzqua had stopped, but the crowd kept moving. 

“Jo’a take the newcomers. The four of you will be in tunnel A.” She called.

A figure seven people in front of them grumbled but stopped beside their new tall boss, waiting for them to catch up.

“This way.” Jo’a whispered at them.

In silence they followed them down into a dark, small tunnel. The walls closing in quickly and the floor rose so far, Clint ended up crawling while Jemma and Skye shuffled along awkwardly, half bent over. At the end, the tunnel bloomed out into a large roughly circular room.

“We’re digging.” Jo’a pointed at themselves and Clint. The two strongest. “The dark stuff in the baskets and then they take it out.” They waved quickly at Jemma and Skye.

“What is the ‘dark stuff’?” Jemma asked. Turning a chunk over in her hands that were in one of the half full baskets.

Jo’a’s whole back rippled. “Dunno.” Wrapping his four fingered hands around a pickax, he set to work. Ignoring any other attempt they made to talk to them.

They followed their example.

= + =

Covered in dirt and exhausted, the three SHIELD agents followed Jo’a out of the chamber at the end of the day. The only other time Jo’a had talked to them had been to warn Skye not to drink all of her water at once, it would be all they got until the end of day meal.

Stumbling out of the tunnel, they joined the flow of similarly exhausted people. The light chatter from that morning was missing, the crowd moving forward in an eerie silence. Going most of the way back to the resident corridor, the crowd turned just before they got there. The people in front of them split into a number of lines that Clint couldn’t make sense of.

“You two, there. You, there.” Tzqua pointed Skye and Jemma to one line and Clint to another.

“No.” He stopped, forcing everyone behind him to shuffle awkwardly out of the way and keep going. Skye and Jemma standing in his wake.

“Fine.” THey shifted, unconcerned. “All of you there.” They pointed at a third line. THye disappeared into the door further down the dimly lit corridor that they had originally pointed Jemma and Skye towards.

“It’s just the baths.” Someone muttered, annoyed at the hold up. “Why are they making a fuss about the baths?”

“Newcomers.” A second unseen person scoffed as if it was explanation enough.

“Come on.” Clint led them to the third door. He didn’t care if it was just the baths, he wasn’t splitting up their group for anything.

The door opened into the first room in the complex they had seen that wasn’t the same dreary, dirty grey. Instead it was lined in silvery tiles and metal sheets. Water spurted out of holes in the metal sheets soaking anyone who got close. The people who had come in before them had stripped off any clothes they had been wearing, shoving them down a large chute before stepping into the next shower that became free.

Unconcerned, Clint stripped. He had been through enough decontamination showers at SHIELD to no longer be worried about being naked in front of people. Skye easily followed his example. While, Jemma was blushing fiercely and took a second longer to follow. Once she had thrown her clothes away, she hunched in on herself, trying to make herself smaller and hide in plain sight.

Clint ignored her discomfort, bringing attention to it would probably only make her more self conscious. Stepping into the hard pressure of the water he was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t almost frozen. Not as hot as he would have liked, but it took some of the chill out of his skin. Scrubbing at the dirt that had mixed with sweat and gathered in every crease or wrinkle he quickly cleaned himself. His fingers and elbows were almost black when he started but a hard scrubbing with one of the brushes hanging on the wall had it washing down the drain.

Almost glowing in well scrubbed pink skin, he stepped out and waited for the girls dripping in the middle of the room. Everyone else was hurrying into the next room, but he would wait. They were taking longer, trying to get the dirt out of their hair. He didn’t envy them the long hair and that in the small tunnel, they would have been brushing against the ceiling all day.

Jemma finished first, probably in a hurry to get clothed again.

“Hurry up Skye.” She grumbled.

Clint smirking next to her.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” Shaking her hair like a dog trying to dry it’s fur, she spattered them both with water starting to chill.

Together, they ventured into the next room. Warm puffs of air met them at the door. Stacks of threadbare fabric were lined along the wall of the thin room. The people who had beaten then in were grabbing one or two depending on their size and continued walking even as they started rubbing themselves dry.

Following suit, they hurried after the crowd, they were almost at the end of the crowd now with their delays at every step of the way so far. The next room had more stacks of cloth. Seeing a four limbed being shaking out a long shirt with four armholes, he looked around for someone more along their builds.

“There.” Skye pointed at the far right corner of the room.

Two people who were halfway between the women’s stature and his were dressing quickly. There was enough extra cloth in their clothes to allow them to fit Clint, although Skye and Jemma would be swimming in them.

Clothed once more, they entered what they would eventually find out was the last room. Doors to either side were letting in those who had split off into the other baths. The space was larger than the quarantine room which had otherwise been the biggest space they had seen so far. Tables and rough benches and stools made out of anything and everything were tetris'd in to allow as many people to sit as possible. Five paces in front of them, a counter was set up in front of each door, he could see three other such setups on the left and right of the room. Each counter had three people behind it, one ladelling what looked like stew from this distance, another was filling cups with something and dropping them onto a tray, and the third was almost flinging more of the hard bread from that morning onto the trays before the person holding the tray hurried off to find a seat.

The line shuffled forward quickly. Everyone eagre for their night's meal. Skye was the first to be served. Food in hand, Skye pointed at a table about halfway up that had three seats free together although Clint’s broad shoulders would make it a tight squeeze. He nodded and she hurried off to claim the space for them, Simmons and Clint following once they were armed with their dinner.

Sniffing suspiciously at the grey-brown slop, he shrugged and dug in. Using the bread as a spoon. It actually wasn’t so bad, he had definitely had worse at least. There was that time in Siberia with the fresh blood drink that the locals wouldn’t let him  _ not _ drink. Not if he didn’t want a bullet in his or Phil’s brains.

Fuck.

Coulson! He wasn’t Phil anymore. 

Glaring at the food he ate it mulishly, glad that Skye and Jemma were chatting to each other quietly but leaving him alone. Finishing his meal in silence, he didn’t have to wait long before the girls were done and they could follow someone they vaguely recognised as from their corridor. The person dropped their tray on a stack by a door and quickly shambled along identical corridors before disappearing behind a door.

The shriek of Jemma opening their room filled the long space.

“Get some fucking oil!” One of their neighbors shouted through the open door next to theirs.

He was done with the whole day, and particularly the emotional punch to the gut the thought of Coulson had delivered. Stomping over to the door he glared at the inhabitants.

“From where?” He growled, sharp eyes ranging over the space that was the same size as their own. Better lighting showed four hammocks running along the walls with a small stack of books in one corner and a screen hanging next to the door playing a video of something that on Earth could have been a Japanese game show.

“Fuck you.” They hissed back from the depths of the farthest hammock.

“Jemma!” He called over his shoulder. “Open the door again.”

The screech of metal on metal started again.

“Fine!” They sat up, wet black eyes the size of saucers in a face barely bigger than Clint’s hand caught all of Clint’s attention. “Down the hall,” they pointed away from Clint’s room, “turn right and second door on the right.”

“Thanks.” Clint’s voice dripped with overly exaggerated sweetness. The grin on his face backing up the sarcasm.

Following the direction he found a storage room twice as big as the room they had been assigned. Shelves filled almost the whole place from floor to ceiling. Loading himself up, he found the oil and much more.

“Here.” Returning, he threw the oil at Skye and dumped the rest of his spoils on one of the mattresses. 

Divvying it up, he had grabbed two sheets, a couple of blankets, a new bulb for their light and a sheet of wood with a bag of tiles he figured they could play checkers or chess or something on.

By the time the light dimmed at lights out the room was starting to look almost, sort of, inhabitable and the door no longer shrieked like a banshee.


	7. Chapter 7

The next day was more of the same. The light flickering on, long hours of back breaking mining, baths, dinner, a bit of free time, and then the electricity going out again.


	8. Chapter 8

And the next.


	9. Chapter 9

And the next.


	10. Chapter 10

And enough after that, that he started to lose count of how long they had been there. Shuffling one foot in front of the other, Clint was silent as they streamed out of the mine and towards the showers. They could have been there for a month, or a year, or two. All he knew was that thinking about Phil no longer hurt, instead there was a numb acceptance that he had been more attached to his husband than his husband had been to him and if he had a chance to go back to Earth he would. For Skye and Jemma. For Natasha. For himself. But not for Phil. The other man had obviously moved on, and he could be happy for him. Or he would do his best to try. And if that failed, he would just avoid the other man like the plague.

Yawning as he followed Skye and Jemma back to the room after yet another mind numbing day, he didn’t expect it when Skye darted sideways halfway there and walked quickly down the corridor that would take her  _ back _ to the mine.

“Skye! Skye what are you doing?” Jemma hurried after the one-time hacker. “Don’t do that. Walking is bad!”

Over the time they had been in the complex, they had found no one cared where they went after dinner as long as they weren’t caught out of their room after the lights went out. Just over two weeks after they had arrived, a newcomer had been caught. Everyone had been gathered after dinner and watched them being whipped until their back was running with clear blood.

None of the Shield Agents had risked it again. They hadn’t seen a reason to.

Skye had stopped beside one of the parts of the wall that jutted out slightly, a support column Clint had always assumed, but didn’t care about enough to figure out. Crouching on the opposite side so he couldn’t see what she was doing from where he was still walking toward her.

A pitiful meow clued him in.

“How did that get here?” He asked, looking down at the tiny pure black kitten Skye was cradling to her chest as she stood.

She turned limpid eyes on him. “Can we keep it?”

The fuck?

“What?” He managed to keep the rest of the expletive in. “Why are you asking me? You’re a grown ass adult.”

“But Daaad.” She whined, a wicked grin on her face.

They had all learnt to make their own fun in the grey confines of their new home.

“Fine. Fine.” He grumbled half-heartedly before pulling her in for a half-hug. Neither of them had any family waiting for them and the easy interactions had been foreign to both of them. Orphan solidarity in social awkwardness and all that.

“You are both so weird.” Jemma added from beside them.

Her childhood had been postcard perfect, down to the idyllic rolling green pastures of English countryside that she described playing in as a girl.

In the thirty seconds it took them to get back to their room, the kitten was purring furiously. The few people still out and about had two very different reactions. Most threw them an odd look before going back to ignoring them, the usual response any one of the humans got. There were three who had very different reactions. It started the same, a bored glance. Until they caught sight of the ball of fur that was huddled in Skye’s arms and looking around with shining golden eyes. Then they stopped and stared for a split second, Clint could see their brains processing what they were seeing, and then one of them threw themselves into their room and slammed the door shut. A second froze. Becoming a statue until they had passed. The third literally ran away screaming.

Aliens were weird.

= + =

The kitten took three days to gain a name and it wasn’t the most imaginative one in Clint’s opinion. But he could understand that, the boring grey on grey on grey surroundings seemed to have sucked any imagination out of them. As they schlep to the mine, the kitten riding in a small pouch Skye had spent the night before rigging out of a spare shirt she had pilfered from the clothes room, she had announced the name.

“Felicette.”

“Felicity? Happiness. Really?” Clint wasn’t sure about that. Feelings of all sorts were dulled in the humdrum of the monotony.

“No. Felicette. It was the name of the first cat sent to space. Space cat.” She waved at the ceiling, assumedly at the sky beyond. “Space cat.” She waved at the dark puddle of fur.

“Dork.” He called her, no heat in the word.

She grinned at him, knowing he actually liked the name. Jemma sighed at them both. She did that alot.

= + =

Watching Felicette explore her surroundings and earn pets off the people that weren’t hiding from her as much as possible brought a new light to Clint’s days. The treats they gave her, meat snuck out of their dinners, to learn new tricks seemed to be the only food she needed from them. The rest she got from hunting the rodent like creatures that hid in the darkest of the tunnels in the mine.

Over the months that they had been there, Jemma has been sneaking tiny samples of the black substance they mined day in and day out. A small pile lived under one corner of her mattress. Clint knew it was to try and figure out what it was, an unwillingness to let go of the scientific curiosity that drove her. The only other outlet she had for it was quizzing the other inhabitants on their biology and that had started more than one physical confrontation that Clint had had to intervene in. 

Skye and Clint both now did their best to direct Jemma’s energy to the pile under her bed. Each night she sorted through it and performed whatever tests she could with the meagre supplies she had scrounged from their cleaning supplies. He didn’t think she had learnt anything other than it filled their whole room with the smell of cloying rot when mixed with the version of bleach used to clean the bathrooms.

Figuring out what they were digging up each day wasn’t going to help them get off this rock. But it gave her purpose, just as Felicette did for Skye. Now if only there was something to fill Clint’s mind and soul with. He missed the warm weight of his bow in his hands more than he would ever be able to verbalise. Knowing it had probably been left behind on the Forest Planet to rot away into nothing physically hurt.

His purpose almost brained him not long after Felicette joined their little group. Walking back from the bathrooms just before lights out, a metal sheet crashed to the floor. Looking up, he saw instantly where it had come from, a dark square in the ceiling slightly smaller than the sheet. Glancing around to make sure no one else had heard the sound, he grabbed the sheet, bent it slightly and pushed it up into the hole. It sprung open to cover it, but lay inside instead of out. Jumping, he curled his fingers over the edge of the opening and wiggled his way in. Six months ago, or whenever he had left earth, he wouldn’t have fit. But the long hard days of digging and meagur meals without the strenuous work he normally put in at the range and gym had changed his body shape, muscle falling away from his shoulders enough to let him squeeze through. The panel that had tried to kill him closed over the hole behind him. It wouldn’t be completely invisible but wasn’t likely to draw attention.

Crouching in the small space, he found himself in some sort of vent. Most likely ventilation for a complex built completely underground. He would have to commando crawl to get anywhere, but it gave him something to do. Each night after lights out, he crept to the opening and began to map the known and previously unknown parts of the complex. He found rooms and corridors beyond those he had seen, better cared for and occupied by the same species as Tzqua. That they were at the top of the local food chain wasn’t news, but the numbers of them beyond the double handful he had previously seen was.

From his hidden highway, he was able to watch and listen to them interact. He watched as the few he recognised were scorned by the rest of their species. Apparently being the top of his food chain made then the bottom of theirs. He listened as they talked, noting the hushed whispers about low supplies of something they called Ktchet which he thought might be the black rock he and the others dug for.

Working his way up, he found his level had been at the bottom of a deep complex. Each level up was neater and cleaner than the one below. Slipping out from dinner early one night, he crawled all the way to the surface. Forcing open the grate at the top to stand at the top of a mountain. He could see for miles and miles, blinded by the never ending white. Shivering, he rubbed his arms trying to keep his blood circulating as he watched his breath condense in front of him. Whatever world they were on, it was frozen. 

Ktchet was fuel. The lifeblood of the city below him. He was sure of it.

Leaving the frozen waste behind, he carefully slid his way down into the depths of the mountain.

His level was dark when he returned. The girls were asleep and while it was interesting, it wasn’t worth waking them up for. He needed to stop aimlessly exploring and start looking for a hanger for ships, or one of those rings from Antarctica, or another unknown way off this rock.

Tomorrow. He would start tomorrow.

He curled up to sleep on one of the mattresses, Skye and Jemma piled together on the other one, and Felicette came and curled up on his chest. Rumbling purrs followed him into sleep.

= + =

Each night he crept closer to where he thought the hangers would be, leaving the plush residential areas and into the more high-tech areas of the higher levels. He found a large room on the third floor on the fifth night of determined searching that housed a fleet of oversnow vehicles.

Still no sign of the planes he knew had to be there somewhere.

= + =

“FUCK YOU Rene Belloq!” A voice called, echoing over the heads of the shuffling, exhausted miners. 

Shouting wasn’t unusual. Newcomers either exploded or succumbed silently to their new fate. The Indiana Jones reference was though. Standing on his tippy-toes to see who had shouted.

“Quill. Shut-up.” A green woman growled, tugging on the arm of a man who could have been Clint’s cousin. Light brown hair, still bleached golden on the tips from a lot of recent sun exposure, and a douchy little moustache and goatee that put him in mind of Stark.

“Get off my Gamora! They can’t do this! The Xandar Federation outlawed slavery.” He was shouting at an unmoved Tzqua.

Pushing through the crowd, Clint came up on the mismatched group around the man. Jemma and Skye had followed in his wake, the rest of the crowd parting easily to allow them through even as they continued to the mines.

“You don’t want to do that man.” Clint said quietly, grabbing the arm that the woman, Gamora, wasn’t clutching.

“You don’t know me.” Pulled back, the man, Quill, was of a height to Clint. Before he left Earth, Clint would have been bigger, but Quill had more mass than he did now.

“I know you’re from Earth.” That got his attention.

“What? How?” He stuttered, the fight leaving him completely.

Clint recognised the yearning in the other man’s eyes. “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Classic.”

“You are so old.” Skye muttered, not quietly enough for the rest of them not to hear her. He wasn’t sure they weren’t meant to either though.

“As you are all getting along, Clint, you can show them around. Tunnel A.” Tzqua swept away, flowing clothes billowing around her.

“Fucking hate the Shi’a.” Quill spat after her.

“Come on.” Clint waved them all forward. The only thing that was met with as much punishment as being out after lights out, was dawdling on work.

He led the suddenly doubled group into the tunnels. The chamber at the other end of the small tunnel was noticeably bigger than the first time the SHIELD agents had seen it. The work of months. 

“We have to dig the black stuff.” It was suspiciously close to what Jo’a had said to them on the first day.

“I didn’t expect to find someone from Earth here.” Quill said. He lounged against the opening into the tunnel, legs and arms crossed unconcerned.

“Ditto.” Clint shot back, picking up an ax. He was going to thrash the guy if he or the girls got in trouble because he wasn’t pulling his weight. Earth or no Earth. Luckily, the two others with him got to work straight away. He knew they weren’t from Earth, Gamora was green and the guy who could give Banner a run for his money in the muscles department was purple and red.

“So how did you end up at the ass end of nowhere?” Quill asked, still not moving.

Skye thumped him, none too gently going by his wince, on her way past with a basket full of Ktchet. Clint smirked at her back, he was going to find a treat for her for that move. And Jemma. He decided when he heard her giggle echo back up the tunnel.

Grudgingly Quill picked up a pick ax and swung it at the wall without much force. He let it drop again almost immediately. “This is stupid.” He whined.

“You are a child.” Gamora accused, letting her shovel slam into the wall.

“He is in fact an adult Gamora.” The unnamed man said.

“You’re a child.” Quill told the man.

Great, Clint thought. This was just great. He had felt a tiny flare of hope, finding another person from Earth who had obviously been doing the whole Lost in Space schtick for longer than them. But he already wished the man was back wherever it was he had been since he left Earth. Gamora was right, the guy was a child. He could feel his subconscious, that sounded a lot like Phil, laughing at the irony of Clint thinking anyone was immature. He roundly told his subconscious to fuck right off.

His day didn’t get any better.

Gamora, and the other guy, Drax Clint learnt over the megare lunch, at least pulled their weight. Quill bitched and whined and barely did anything. Skye and Jemma spent the whole day climbing back and forth through the tunnel trying to keep up with the three of them. 

“I hate him.” Skye muttered darkly from beside him.

Even without the glare she was pointing in Quill’s direction, Clint didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. He felt the same. Jemma’s humph was very understanding. 

“I’m not overly fond of him most of the time either.” Gamora responded to Skye’s declaration.

Skye and Jemma both jumped, surprised by the unexpected voice. 

“He does grow on you though.” She shrugged, unconcerned for their hatred for her friend.

“Like a fungus?” Jemma asked, one of her rare bouts of sass breaking through her weariness of new people.

The question startled a delighted laugh from the other woman. “Very.” She followed them into the shower room, her two male companions going into one of the other rooms. She happily chatted to them about the expectations in the complex and exchanging light hearted stories about other places they had been.

Every story Clint told was real, but he wasn’t sure that he believed some of the things Gamora was saying. A talking tree? Really? He would pay the talking, intelligent raccoon, but an ambulatory tree? No.

He would know he had officially lost his mind when he started believing  _ that. _

Dinner was more awkward. Gamora was easy to get along with, but Clint, Skye, and Jemma didn’t want to talk to Quill, and Drax was just weird. It was fun watching him and Skye interacting though, Clint decided. The young woman spoke 85% in pop culture references and slang which went right over the man’s head.

“Drax is Kylosian.” Gamora whispered as if that should mean something to Clint. “Kylosian’s are a... naive race. Simple in their thinking.” She expanded, somehow reading his confusion. “Or were. There aren’t many of them left.”

Clint glanced over at the large man, seeing him anew, sympathy underlining the amusement. It didn’t help the awkwardness though. The two groups split up after eating. Clint lounged in their room until the lights flicked off. He was tired from trying to cover for Quill, but his brain was still going a hundred miles an hour and he couldn’t get the thought of Phil out of his mind. Wondering what the older man would think about his new acquaintances.

Probably say something so completely deadpan that everyone else misses the sass while simultaneously being open and friendly and within a two minute conversation have the whole group eating out of his hand. Clint had seen it enough to know how it would go. But it was what he would say once they were behind closed doors he couldn’t imagine. The thought of them sitting on their couch, the one they had spent three different weekends going to two dozen furniture stores looking for, discussing meeting actual motherfucking aliens was just a little too much to bare. 

Climbing out of bed, he eased his way into the corridor and slunk to the opening. Another night of creeping on the rest of the complex to look forward to. He was finally living up to the baby agents’ stories of him frequenting the vents. It had never happened, SHIELD had so many alarms and laser grids and shit in their vents it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Almost the second he was in the long metal box, voices were echoing in the space. Most of the inhabitants of his level went to bed almost as soon as the light went out, some even before, worn out by the long days.

Inching down the small space, he worked his way to the grate the voices were coming out of.

“...find it?” Quill was saying, his voice was more serious, focused, than Clint had heard it all day.

“Somehow.” Gamora responded to whatever the other Earthling had asked before Clint was close enough to understand what was being said. The nicest of the three newcomers sounded hard. Completely different from earlier.

It reminded Clint of someone. He missed the next part of the conversation as he tried to work it out. It took longer than it should have to figure out it was Natasha. His best friend. The person who had always been there for him. Before everyone else and after everyone else was gone. Before and during and after Phil. The thought he might be starting to forget her was uncomfortable. What else was he forgetting about his old life and the people in it?

It reminded him of how she could be two completely different people, on mission and off. He just wasn’t sure which was the on mission Gamora and which was the off.

Peering through the grate, he could see them easing the door of their room open. Quickly, he shuffled to the closest opening and dropped silently to the ground. It put him just behind their door, out of their line of sight. Smirking he lent against the wall and waited for them to notice him.

Quill gave a very satisfying yelp. Gamora reached for a weapon holster that wasn’t there. And Drax dropped into a defensive stance. Interesting.

“What up guys?” 

“Nothing. Just going to the bathroom.” Gamora let her hand drop and a smile settle onto her face.

Well, that answered that. Nice Gamora was mission Gamora. Now to just figure out what the mission was. It could be anything, but they weren’t going to get far fast.

“Sure.” He agreed. “Except there’s a toilet in your room, and that could get you all killed. Not allowed out after dark.” He distinctly remembered telling them that rule.

“Then why are you out?” Quill glared at him.

“I like to live dangerously.” Clint kept the smirk squarely on his face just to annoy him.

The three of them retreated into their room. Jumping, he was back in the vent and above their room before they had closed their door.

“Fuck.” Quill spat.

“We’ll just wait and go later.” Gamora said, unconcerned about the delay.

“Thoran Rul will not be going anywhere.” Drax added. He had sat on the thin mattress directly below where Clint was eavesdropping. Closing his eyes, he lent back and to all appearances dropped off to sleep.

“..not going anywhere.” Quill mimicked sarcastically. “I hate this planet. With it’s stupid ice! And stupid mines! And that dick? Clint? Or whatever his name is. What the fuck is with that guy?”

His companions ignored the question. Gamora joining Drax in his nap.

For hours Clint waited to see what they would do next. But soon after Gamora fell asleep, so did Quill and when his internal clock told him the sleeping time was half gone and it didn’t look like they were going to move again that night he returned to his own room to catch a few hours of rest.


	11. Chapter 11

Whatever the three were after, they wouldn’t be put off for long. Clint knew it from countless missions that had reached the pointy end and the whole team was just ready to go home. Every move they made, every word they said screamed they were at the end of a long mission.

That was why Clint was taking the risk to shimmy into the air vents before the lights went out. He was as confident as he could be that there wasn’t a risk of anyone seeing him, but it was still a risk. Moving carefully to make sure the people in the rooms he was passing wouldn’t hear him, it took longer to position himself above Quill, Gamora, and Drax’s room.

There wasn’t any chatter below him, craning himself into an unnatural position, he caught a glimpse of Drax and Quill in their entireties and the tips of Gamora’s shoes. Wherever they had been trying to go the other day, they hadn’t made a break for it yet. Probably waiting until after dark. Settling in to wait, he allowed himself to half-doze catching up on the sleep he had missed the night before and would probably be missing again tonight.

Half an hour after the lights flickered off, they moved. Quieter than the night before, they knew now there was a chance someone would be watching them. After they had slunk out the door, Cint wiggled out of the little dead-end above their room and followed. He was moving slower than them, but knew the lay of the land while they had to be careful of any of the Shi’a wandering around and the dead-ends they bumped into every now and again.

That first night they didn’t get off their floor, but successfully dodged the three Shi’a wandering the corridors. They tried again two nights later. And again. For three weeks, Clint shadowed them through the complex every second night watching as they inched further into the higher levels. Never seeming to get closer to what they were looking for.

If Quill’s attitude had gotten better during the day, he might have considered helping them out. He was pretty confident he could find whatever it was they were searching for easily enough. But it hadn’t, so he didn’t. He was getting bored though. On day 24? He thought it was day 24 on them being there, he was starting to lose count again.

“Was Rocket in contact today?” Gamora asked just after the lights turned off but before they set off for their night’s search.

“Yep. He and Groot are probably taking apart the Milano as we speak.” Quill grumbled.

Clint knew all about the Milano, Quill’s ship that was a weird homage to Who’s the Boss and particularly Alyssa Milano. He couldn’t judge though, Phil’s obsession with Captain America had led to some peculiarly named appliances and cars over the course of their relationship. A bitter voice in his head reminded him that Phil didn’t need to fanboy over the original superhero anymore, he had the authentic product now. Shaking it off, he wiggled out of his hiding spot and went back to the room he shared with Skye and Jemma. If Quill, Gamora, and Drax had a way off the rock that was actually in reach, it was worth talking to the other two about maybe helping them out. For a price of course.

“Skye, Jemma.” He whispered when he got back to the room.

Neither woman stirred.

“Skye, Jemma.” He said again, slightly louder. Poking each of the bundles of blankets in the vicinity of what he thought might be their shoulders. Golden eyes watched him unblinkingly from an indentation between the two tightly wrapped bundles.

A hand swatted at him. He thought it might have been Jemma but wasn’t one hundred percent certain. He poked them both again, hissing at them. Felicette hopped up this time, realising her sleeping spot was about to be violently disturbed. She stalked across the room and curled up in the middle of his pillow. Normally he would have chased her off, but right now he was more concerned with talking to the other two.

“What?” Jemma hissed back, blue eyes glaring at him over the edge of her blanket nest.

“Skye?” He ignored her now that she was awake enough to be annoyed at him. It was a normal state of being for the two of them, him being annoying and her being annoyed.

“I hate you.” Skye muttered with no venom, just a lot of exhaustion. The lump that was the hacker wiggled into a tighter ball.

Finding the edge of one of the blankets, he gave it a sharp tug. Unravelling the textile burrito to spill her onto the cold, concrete floor. He grinned down evilly at her.

“I hate you.” Ah, there was the venom!

“No you don’t.” He argued. “You love me. You love me more than you loved that laptop you couldn’t stop crowing about after you won it from Thomas Percy for that stupid bet.”

She sat up in indignation. “Excuse you! That was not a stupid bet, Thomas was stupid for agreeing to it.” She poked back at him.

“I know.” He succumbed easily. “But that’s not why I woke you up.” He shifted until he was more comfortably sat on the edge of the shitty mattress the women shared.

“I didn’t think it was. Not that I would put it past you, but then you wouldn’t have woken Jemma as well, cause she can kick your ass with science even in this frozen hellhole.” She imitated the cheshire cat in the width of the grin she aimed at Jemma.

“Damn right.” Jemma smirked. Her accent adding Bond Villain depths to the threat.

An involuntary shiver ran down his spine.

“Back on topic.” He forcefully wrenched control of the conversation back. “I think I  _ might _ . Might. Have a way off this wrong. Again, I want to emphasise the might in that sentence.” He let his words hang in the air between them. Gave them a chance to mull over the words, meaning, and implication of what he had said.

“What way?” Jemma was the first to break the silence. Her curiosity overcoming her annoyance at Clint waking her up.

“Gamora, Drax, and Quill.” He grumbled on the other man’s name. If this happened, if the other group were able to help them get off the planet, he was going to have to get over his animosity to the other earthling.

“What about them?” Lounging lazily on the pile of blankets she had reassembled, Skye finally rejoined the conservation.

“Quill’s ship,”

“The Milano.” Skye and Jemma chimed together.

“Right. I think it’s close. We knew they were after something here.” He continued.

They nodded, the speculation on what it was they were looking for had been a nightly conversation topic for over a week after the newcomers had first arrived.

“So once they find whatever they are looking for they are going to be leaving. Somehow.”

“How does that help us?” Skye cut in.

He glared at her, silently telling her to let him finish talking. “We make a deal with them. I help them find whatever it is they are looking for and they get us out of here. Quid pro quo and all that shit.”

= + =

“Hey, Gamora. Wait up!” Clint cut a path through the lumbering crowd the next morning. Everyone shuffling disheartedly to the mines for another dreary, repetitive day.

Gamora barely stuttered in her steps. She didn’t wait up.

“Come on, work with me here.” Clint grumbled to himself, Skye snickering behind him. “Shuddup.”

Just as they stepped from the worked concrete of the corridors into the soft almost black soil of the tunnels, the three of them caught up with Gamora and her two boys. “Why didn’t you wait?” He huffed, embarrassingly out of breath A year ago he wouldn’t have even noticed the effort of the light job. His time away from Earth had been hell on his fitness. He didn’t bother asking if she had heard him, he knew she had.

“I didn’t want to.”

The woman’s limit on faux friendliness had run out. A smug corner of his mind noted that Natasha could hold onto the fake smiles and niceties for a lot longer.

“Come on.” He didn’t touch her, liking his fingers attached to his hands and his hands attached to his arms. Instead, he waved her, Drax and Quill down a side tunnel.

Skye and Jemma brought up the back of the group to subtly herd the others into following Clint. He loved those two.

“What do you want?” Gamora got right to the point. Arms crossed defensively and a frown on her face that promised severe bodily harm if he didn’t start talking right that second.

“What are you guys looking for?” He asked casually, easily ignoring the threat implicit in her posture.

Incredibly she tightened further and in his peripheral vision he saw Quill straighten in readiness. Drax was already as intimidating as he could get, as far as Clint could tell, it was the man’s natural state of being.

“What do you know about that?”

“Just that you are here looking for something.” He broke the string of questions that weren’t getting them anywhere. “And you have a way off this rock. We help you, you help us.” He made his offer. Laying it out there for them to decide on.

“And  _ how _ are you going to help us? Exactly?” She was reminding him more and more of Natasha, sending a painful spike through his soul. He had been so quick to run away from Coulson and the Everests of hurt left in the other man’s wake that he had forgotten his best friend. His sister.

“We’ve been here longer. I know my way around and not just on this level.” He smirked, knowing he had them. They hadn’t yet found the entrances that would take them higher into the complex.

“This level?” Quill broke in, impatient.

= + =

They met just before lights out in Clint, Jemma, and Skye’s room. There had been a tense moment when Gamora had followed Drax and Quill into the room and stopped short in the doorway. Her face was pale as she stared at something inside the room. Clint looked around, had they left something unforgivably rude out? Phil had had  _ things to say _ about the proper place for dirty laundry, and Clint thought he was pretty good these days. And there was that whole thing where their laundry was thrown down a chute in the washrooms before dinner and never had a chance to end up laying around the room.

“Flerken.” Gamora breathed slowly edging back out the door.

“Mreow?” Felicitte sat in the middle of the room watching her. Head titled to the side.

“How?” Gamora asked as Jemma bent down to scoop the cat up into her arms.

Scratching her ears Jemma fell onto Clint’s mattress close to the wall. Felicitte purring up a storm in her lap.

“How?” Gamora asked again.

Quill got over her fear first. Stomping out of the room, he lightly grabbed her arm and pulled her into the room, closing the door behind them. “It’s just a  _ cat _ Gamora. You’re acting as if it is about to eat you.”

Glancing around the room and seeing the looks of confusion and exasperation on their faces, Clint and the girls were used to the sometimes odd reactions of people to the cat, she hardened her face and chose a seat as far from the furiously purring animal as the small room would allow.

“This level?” Whatever patience Quill normally had, it was gone after Gamora’s delay. Starting where they had left off that morning.

“This level.” Clint confirmed. “There are fifteen or so levels above this one. All the way to the surface. What are you looking for?” He had answered their question, they could answer his, tit-for-tat.

“Thorun Rul.” Drax droned.

“What’s that?” Jemma piped up. Interest shining bright in her eyes.

“Who.” Gamora corrected.

“Owl.” Five people simultaneously turned to look at Skye. “What? We aren’t doing word association?” She was bored and they weren’t getting anywhere, neither side wanting to give any ground. “Who is Thorun Rul?” She corrected Jemma’s question when they just kept looking at her.

“Thorun Rul was one of the founders of the Xandarian Empire. After he died he became the centre of the Central Neural Computer.” Gamora finally gave a straight answer.

Skye’s eagure but honest personality getting the other woman to open up where Clint or Jemma would have failed, the instincts of years as spies or working for a spy organisation seeped from them. 

“Ew. And Awesome!” Skye was the best placed to understand what Gamora was talking about, all Clint got from it was that it was something to do with computers.

“Very.” Gamora smiled, actually honestly smiled at Skye, the first emotion other than stony faced forced calm since being dragged into the room.

It was interesting that the more open Gamora got the stronger Quill’s glaring at Skye got. A crack he could use if he needed to.

“A Shi’an strike group stole the quantum computing storage drive that held the original copy of Thorun Rul. We were hired to get it back.” Gamora continued.

They did have a way off planet. Even if they hadn’t realised they had confirmed it, they had. If they had been sent here to retrieve something, they had to have a way of getting it back to the Xandarians. He was turning everything else over in his mind as Skye and Gamora continued talking. A section of his mind was listening and slotting information into the picture that was forming.

“Why would they steal it?” Clint broke in, cutting off Skye’s squealing over the state of computers on Xandar or something. If he knew why the Shi’a wanted it, he would have a better idea where they would have stashed it, because it was probably a small metal box which could be anywhere.

“The Shi’ans and Xandarians aren’t at war per se, but they have been having border clashes on and off for a few centuries. Xandar recently took over a small moon on the border between their territories that Shi’a were using as a mining colony.” Drax answered. “They took Thorun Rul hostage.”

So not because they wanted the tech, or information. It was purely a bargaining chip.

“Second or third floor.” Clint decided out loud. “I have a few ideas. If I can get this neural net thing, you can get us off planet?”

The other three looked at each other, silently deciding on their course of action.

“Our next opportunity to get off the planet is in four days. If you can get it that night we will take all three of you with us.” Gamora spoke for them all.

“Deal.” He held his hand out to shake on it. It was a feeble attempt as ensuring they came through on their end of the bargain, it was likely shaking on it wasn’t even a thing outside of Earth. And not even everywhere on Earth.

Quill shook. Clint was at least confident that he knew the significance of the gesture.

“You have any more information on this thing?”


	12. Chapter 12

Skye stood at one end of the corridor and Jemma at the other, watching approaching Shi’a. Clint checked on them both, getting duel nods of the all-clear before jumping for the vent and sliding noiselessly into the hidden metal highway. The last two nights he had scouted. Finding the Thoran Rul thing that Gamora, Drax, and Quill wanted. He had found it just before the lights turned back on that morning. Getting it out was going to be the trick.

He had six hours. Then the rest of the other teams people were going to be meeting them on the surface. Clint was going to get in position now to retrieve the item and an hour after lights out, the rest of them were going to start heading up following a map and directions that Clint had given them. 

Turning his mind from their escape route to the job in front of him, he kept moving. The next level was the first of the Shi’a only levels. Mostly made up of their own laundry rooms and storage. Thoran Rul was being kept on the third level down from the surface. Getting there wasn’t the problem, getting the box that was slightly smaller than his head wasn’t the problem. Getting the box out and up to the surface was the problem.

As far as he could tell, the room only had a basic manual lock on the door and he hadn’t seen anything in the whole place to suggest electronic alarms. That didn’t mean he wasn’t planning for them though.

A countdown in his head he hadn’t had to listen to in a long time was ticking down. The seconds between himself, his task, and freedom was growing shorter. Watching his breathing and counting the turns got him into position without making any mistakes, not making any noise. The corridor he had been aiming for was dark and quiet. The inhabitants of the higher floors were asleep or on their living levels. The floor he was on, the three above him, and another four seemed to be office areas and storage for the equipment they used for venturing out of the complex onto the frozen waste beyond.

Checking once more that the area was as deserted as he thought it was, he unscrewed the vent covering and dropped soundlessly to the ground. The squeaky boots they had been given were being looked after by Skye and would be returned to him upon reaching the surface. For now he was in the threadbare socks with a large hole over one of his big toes.

The door was easy enough to pick with the help of some wire he had liberated after work that day from the storage room. It had been being used to keep a bundle of blankets together. Popping open with a satisfying click he grinned, he still had it. Not that he thought he didn’t, but the confirmation was good.

Beyond the door, the room was laid out in neat lines, everything perfectly placed on shelves that reached from floor to ceiling, and from the door to the far wall that was lost in shadows. He had scoped it out from the ceiling vents the night before and the box that was Thoran Rul was on a shelf about hip height and a third of the way from the door to the back door. He found it quickly. Exactly where he had left it. Good.

He didn’t just lift the thing. First he looked around it as much as he could, making sure there were no wires or sensors that would alert guards or someone else to his meddling. Not seeing anything, he carefully lifted the smooth metal box. Hovering with it just off the shelf for a long second, listening for any changes. Nothing. Quickly, but carefully, he shoved the box into the makeshift bag slung over his back.

He locked the door behind himself.

Lifting the cloth covered box into the vent, he gave it a good shove and jumped up after it. WIth the vent cover back in place, the only sign he had been there was the empty space on the shelf.

Moving through the vents with the box without making any sound was more problematic. The fabric muffled it slightly, but it seemed to want to bang against both walls every time he tried to maneuver around a corner. The fabric of the bag only helped with the noise, the rough fabric seemed to catch and snag on every short spike of metal or bolt jutting out of the vent.

“Shit.” He hissed, the bag catching and banging for the hundredth time. Unlike every previous time, the corridor below him wasn’t empty. A tall, willowy Shi’a Clint didn’t recognise was wandering down the dim hallway. 

He put his open palm over the area of the wall where the box had hit, trying to minimise the sound. Holding his breath, he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that they hadn’t heard the small noise. 

They stopped directly under him. Looking around for the disturbance before moving on with a head tilt that Clint thought would have been a shrug in a human. A movement saying oh, well it was probably my imagination or a rat/ other small pest animal.

For a count of forty-five, thirty was cliche and sixty was too long, he held still with all of the skill he had developed over a decade as a sniper for SHIELD. On forty-five he was moving, scooting himself and the wrapped box down the vent.

It was the only close call.

Dropping down beside Quill in a shadowed corner of the hanger, he took a perverse pleasure in the other man’s squeak of surprise.

“Hi.” Clint grinned.

“Die.” Quill grumbled.

“Did you get it?” Gamora asked, ignoring the sniping.

Clint lifted the bag to show the boxy shape it had been forced into. Skye handed him his boots once he allowed the bag to drop back to his side. Shod once again, Drax passed out the large puffy snow coats he had liberated from a cupboard next to one of the vehicles.

“Let us go.” Drax was done with all of this. The job was done, he wanted to return to civilisation.

Bundled up Clint, Skye, and Jemma followed them to freedom.

= + =

“That is a tree.” Jemma said needlessly, staring at the co-pilot seat. She also wanted to stare at the pilot’s seat and its talking bi-pedal racoon. But the tree took precedent on the what the fuck scale.

Clint couldn’t agree with that decision more. He was tempted to think he was hallucinating after the long walk through the dark, frozen night. Feet, face, and hands freezing. Exhausted from the long walk through the waist deep snow. He would be tempted to think he was hallucinating, except Jemma was seeing the same thing.

“That  _ is _ a tree.” Skye confirmed.

And Skye was seeing it too. See, he wasn’t going crazy.

“I am groot.” The tree said.

“Hey Groot. Hey Rocket. Let’s get outta here.” Quill greeted his team mates, shedding his coat and dropping the bag containing Thoran Rul into a draw which he kicked closed none too gently.

“Already on it asshole.” The racoon’s grin was feral.

“I am groot.” Groot nodded.

Clint couldn’t tear his eyes away from the tree that was just a little shorter than his shoulder. The creature’s lanky arms and legs suggested it wasn’t fully grown. If they were a human, Clint would guess his age at fifteen or just over.

“Come. Warm up and get something to eat.” Gamora gently drew them away, the snow outside the windows was streaked in pink and gold of sunrise. 

The spectacular colours were falling away as the small craft lifted off without a jolt or sound to suggest they were moving. It didn’t take long for the pinks and golds to fade to a pale, washed out blue to the deep, velvet black of space. Skye and Jemma were both pressed to a window, huddled as tightly as they could get watching the unblinking stars. Clint held himself still, sitting at the table, but he could see the view that was leaving the three of them awestruck out the front windscreen. Or was it asteroid-screen? Space-screen? Vacuum-screen? There wasn’t any wind in space, was there?

He felt like his brain was about to melt out of his ears and resolutely turned his eyes away from the abyss that could have kept him hypnotised for the rest of his life. How did anyone come back to Earth after seeing it?

Slowly all of the other people on the ship joined Clint at the table. Gamora and Drax first, changed out of the clothes provided in the complex and into leathers. Groot wandered over next, looking at Clint and the two women with interest but staying quiet. The racoon, Rocket, sauntered over next, one tiny paw resting on a gun that was more appropriately sized for Clint than Rocket. Quill was last, climbing out of a hatch in the floor, the boring, well-worn linen clothes replaced by a full length maroon leather duster.

“Okay Faux-Fury.” Clint greeted him with a laugh.

Jemma and Skye looked over at the sound of his voice, caught sight of Quill and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“Fury for Lesbians?” Skye suggested.

“Hollywood whitewashed Fury?” Was Jemma’s contribution to the three of them losing it.

For long minutes each time one of them looked at another, or at Quill, who was pouting, they burst into uncontrollable giggles again. Setting the other two off. Clint knew it wasn’t really about the red leather. It was the relaxing of tension and worry that had been sitting heavy on all of their shoulders. A release they all needed as much as it made the rest of them look at them as if they had completely lost their minds.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Clint gasped, fighting down another wave of chuckles.

“Yeah. Sorry.” Skye agreed.

Jemma didn’t try and talk. Her face was starting to go pink as she struggled to contain herself.

“What’s the plan now?” Clint asked. They hadn’t discussed what would happen to them after the others helped them get off the planet. Earth was still a long way away.

Rocket fiddled with a tablet, claws clicking against the glass. The air above the table lit up, a white planet spun lazily. The view zoomed out, a solar system around two small suns shrunk to become a pinpoint just in front of Clint. Other lights dotted the air. A blue dot close to Gamora began to pulse, a thin line bounced slightly around the table, from the first system to the pulsing point.

“That’s where we are. Just leaving Shi’atian.” Rocket pointed at the dot in front of Clint. “That’s Xandar.” He drew his claw across the table to point at the pulsing point.

The hologram flashed off. Rocket slid the tablet onto the table and stood up.

“And?!” Skye yelped. “And what? It will take us a day? Two? A year? To get there? And once we do? Then what? I don’t care about the names of these places! I care about what’s actually happening!” She had been pushed too far. Exploding at the racoon.

“Skye.” Jemma jumped up after her friend, grabbing her hand. “Stop.” She pulled lightly. “Please, stop.”

Skye whirled around, turning her anger on Jemma. “How can you be so calm? We are lost in Space! It’s a bad joke, a B-grade 60’s tv show! I won’t stop Jemma! I want to go home, wherever the fuck that is!” She was breathing hard, her anger burnt out as quickly as it had bloomed.

“I just want to go home.” She said again, voice small and broken.

Jemma reeled her in, holding her tightly and whispering too quietly for the others to hear.

“She’s right though.” Clint said to no one in particular.

“I am groot.” Groot agreed. Clint thought he could hear a different inflection in the three repeated words.

With a grumpy huff, Rocket sat. Fur ruffling in irritation.

“Shi’atian is about three days away from Xandar. It takes that long cause there is a lot of shit we need to avoid, mine fields etc. Once we get there I don’t care what you do.” He slammed away from the table, grumbling to himself the whole way.

“I am groot.” Groot chastised him.

The racoon threw a rude gesture at all of them and jumped down the hatch Quill had appeared from, the metal slamming behind him.

“Rocket doesn’t have… manners.” Gamora said.

It was as close to an apology as they were going to get Clint thought. Without the distraction of the racoon, he was finally able to look around. Aside from the table and the cockpit, there was a kitchen in the central area with the table, Drax busily loading a plate up. There were three sort of pods off the main area, directly across from the cockpit was the airlock they had used to board the ship, their heavy snow gear still in piles around the securely locked door. While the pod on the left had a couple of couches built into the wall, and the pod on the right seemed to be storage, cupboards lining each wall and a tall, thin workbench between.

A shadow detached itself from the piles of clothes.

“I am groot!” Groot shouted at seeing the cat, her fur fluffed up in irritation.

“Mrow.” Felicitte’s fur settled the moment she saw Groot.

Trotting over, she wound around and through the tree’s legs. The two exchanging a series of meows, and ‘I am groot’s that seemed to mean something to the two of them. Both beaming with happiness, as much as a tree and a cat could at least.

All of them were blinking at the pair. Felicitte had moved on from twining around Groot and started climbing him instead.

“Weird.” Quill said.

“Very.” Skye agreed. Her voice still a little raw from yelling and then crying.

Jemma yawned, setting Skye off.

“Come.” Drax stood. He led them to the left hand pod. Pressing a few buttons, the couches moved, the seats sliding to meet in the middle and the backs following to fill up the whole space with a cushioned knee high platform. “Blankets.” Another button push opened a cabinet so well hidden in the wall that even Clint hadn’t seen it’s outline. A neatly folded pile of fabric was stacked inside.

“Thanks.” Clint grabbed all of them and started arranging them into a couple of piles, three for each of them.

“Of course.” Drax agreed with a nod and moved away, the man was the least verbose person Clint had ever known.

The lights dipped, drawing Clint’s attention from fussing with the blankets, Skye and Jemma were slumped at the table watching him fuss tiredly. Everyone else was gone. Disappearing into the depths of the ship without him noticing. He really was tired.

Flopping onto the bed, he rolled himself into one of the blanket nests he had made and was only awake long enough to feel the cushions dip twice as the women followed him.


	13. Chapter 13

Clint didn’t sleep for long. He didn’t think at least. Skye and Jemma were both still asleep and the lights were still low, the silvery light from distant stars and the pale blue glow of tech so much more advanced than anything on earth the only light sources. He lay in bed for a while, watching the view out the small window in their pod.

Giving it up for a lost cause, he wiggled his way out of the bottom of the blankets and padded over to the cockpit by way of the kitchen area. Cup of tea in hand, he dropped soundlessly into the co-pilot’s seat. He wanted to sit in the pilot’s but was concerned about messing something up. He missed flying. The feeling of soaring above everything, untouchable by the chaos that was the ground.

The unchanging view out the window and the lifting of the stress of the last few months lulled him into the calm mindset that allowed his thoughts to drift. Images of Phil took over. For so long he had been avoiding thinking about the other man, his husband. Avoiding the hurt that had slowly transformed into unflinching sadness and then acceptance.

He had always known that Phil was too good for him. That one day he would realise that Clint was a little too broken to keep. That it was a little too heavy to carry all of the baggage that came with being with him.

“What’s up?” Skye asked quietly, settling into the pilot’s chair unconcerned about the myriad of buttons and levers that could send them into a blackhole or some other celestial body just waiting to kill them all. 

One of the blankets was still draped over her shoulders, protection against the cool temperature of the ship. She was cradling her own cup of steaming tea and pushed a fresh cup into his hands.

“Clint?” She nudged him carefully with a toe when he didn’t answer.

“Hu?” He blinked and focused in on her again. The thoughts about what Phil would think of the ship slipping into the background.

“What’s up? You’re distracted.”

He hadn’t allowed himself to really let his mind wander, not since they had been kidnapped from Earth. It was his job to keep them all safe, a moment of inattention, of allowing his mind to move to that place where the outside world barely existed was dangerous. 

“Just thinkin’.” The Mid-western drawl that he had mostly lost was back, roughening the edges of his words in his exhaustion.

“About?” She wasn’t going to let this go.

“About my husband.” He murmured, not looking at her. With the way she was with Jemma, and had looked at Gamora, he didn’t think she would have a negative reaction to the information, but it would hurt more than he wanted to admit if he was wrong. He had come to care about Skye like she was a little sister or adopted daughter. That thought was too uncomfortable to dwell on so he smirked at the yelp she had let out at his words.

Spilling hot tea on herself in her surprise, she glared at him. Sucking the tiny burn on the base of her thumb, she mumbled ‘asshole’ around her hand. He grinned at her unrepentant.

“Husband?” She squeaked. “I didn’t… um… know that you were married….” She finished lamely. “If you have someone waiting for you, why haven’t you been desperate to get home?”

Compared to Skye and Jemma, and Woo before they had left him behind, he had barely mentioned getting home. Never mentioned what he missed most.

“Why were you in Antartica if you have someone at home?” She just kept talking.

“I didn’t. Don’t.” He said sadly, fighting the wave of sadness that threatened to engulf him. It was the first time he had said it out loud. Refusing to look at her, he drank deeply from the hot, too sweet tea. 

“I don’t understand…”

He could feel her watching him carefully with sad eyes.

“How much do you know about the Battle of New York? And what happened before it?” He asked, unsure how much he wanted to tell her.

“You were taken, right? But got away and then fought.”

He finally peeked at her, and not seeing any pity or disgust on her face turned back to face her, throwing his legs over the arm of the chair. He cradled his mug in tight to his chest, trying to steal its warmth. She was essentially right, and didn’t need to know more.

“While I was..was taken.” He had to pause to push the icy blue that ran through his veins back with the heat of the tea in his hands, and the care and love from the woman sitting beside him. Revelling in the feeling of  _ family _ he was able to control the remembered shudders. “My, um husband. He went up against Loki. He… he died.” Even knowing what came next, he struggled to verbalise the loss. For months he had carried that load with him every second of every day and it wasn’t really possible to put it down, even now.

“Agent Coulson?!” She squeaked for completely different reasons.

Clint never forgot who Phil was to most other agents, the cold as ice, calm, badass motherfucker who could put anyone down with a tie pin and a hard look. He knew the circumstances of the legendary agent’s death had gotten around, but he had hoped it hadn’t made its way to the frozen continent. No such luck.

“Yup.” He could feel himself blush, but also wait for the inevitable questions of why Agent Coulson the Agent’s Agent was with  _ him? _ The highschool dropout Carney?

“Nice going Barton!” She grinned at him, holding a hand up for a high five.

The heat of the blush spread, but he acquiesced and lightly slapped his palm into hers. The moment of realisation shattered the happy for him smile on her face.

“Oh god. Clint. I am so sorry!” Carefully placing her empty mug on the floor and letting the blanket fall from around her shoulders, she launched herself across the small space at him. Her arms going around him in a tight hug. “I am so, so sorry.”

He hugged her back. It wasn’t fair to her, letting her think for even a second that he was a widower when he wasn’t, but the hug was nice. The care and love behind it warmed him more than the tea ever could.

“It’s okay Skye.” He patted her awkwardly when she didn’t look like she was going to let go any time soon. “Let go.” He finally asked her. “The stories were exaggerated. Or not. I don’t know.”

She released him, moving back to her own chair. Confusion clear on her face.

“What?”

“I was told he was dead. After we won.” He picked up the story where it really started. “I, I blamed myself.” He couldn’t look at her again, the guilt of all of those lost agents, lost lives, heavy on his mind. “For all of it. But to hear I had killed him. God. I loved him so much.” He couldn’t stop the tears. “I love him so much.”

Phil might not love him anymore, but his feelings weren’t past tense.

“I asked for a mission away from New York. Everything was a reminder of him. I left. For months. But it was a lie, he hadn’t died. I don’t know the whole story, didn’t stick around to find out.” He was dancing around the rest of it. He wasn’t sure what he wanted her reaction to be. With time, and distance, a lot of distance, he knew he didn’t hate Phil. Couldn’t. And he didn’t want to see that hate on someone else. “When I got back. He was there. Alive. But moved on.”

“I don’t understand.” The careful tension in her shoulders told him she was holding herself still. Maybe to let him finish his story, or because she had seen how weary he was of her reaction. It didn’t matter.

“He had literally moved on. From me. When I got back to the tower, I couldn’t go back to our apartment, he was getting back from a date.” His voice cracked beyond his control on the last word. The image of his husband wrapped up in the arms of the man Phil had admired, idolised, his whole life burnt onto the back of his eyelids. Sparked back to brilliant technicolour by his own words.

“Asshole!” She swore.

A wet laugh escaped him. She looked so offended, on his behalf.

“I knew it was only a matter of time.” He tried to settle her, it was over and done, Phil was out of his reach just like he had always been.

“What?” Her offense quickly turned to fury. “What was only a matter of time? That the asshole would cheat on you? Why would you marry such a dickhead? Especially if you knew he was a cheating cheater who cheats?”

“What? NO.” A wire had been crossed somewhere.

“Why are you shouting?” Jemma asked from the doorway into the rest of the ship. “Som..e of us are tryin..g to sleep.” She yawned.

“Clint was just telling me, he was married to an asshole.” Skye glared at both of them, and hten out the window. Maybe she was angry at reality rather than him?

“You were married sir?” Jemma had a tendency to slip back into the respect of their previous ranks when tired.

“Yup.” He shrugged.

“To an asshole.” Skye muttered again.

“I get it.” He lost his temper a little. “And you have it wrong. He wasn’t, isn’t, an asshole. I meant I always knew he was only going to be mine for a while. I was never good enough for him.” He tried to explain but by the growing anger on both of their faces, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. He had mangled this same conversation with Tasha when he tried to tell her why he was refusing to make a move on their handler years and years and a marriage license ago.

“Bullshit.” Skye said.

“Asshole.” Jemma agreed.

“What?” Clint asked.

“That’s bullshit. I don’t care who this Agent Coulson was. Is. He isn’t better than you. You. Are. Fuck. Ing. Awesome.” Skye was poking him sharply in the chest.

“Agent Coulson?” Jemma asked, voice soft with wonder. Shaking herself she hardened. “He is not better than you. Or anyone. You deserve someone who loves you Clint. Never doubt that.”

The only thing to do in the face of such earnestness was scoop them both up into a bone crushingly strong hug.

“Love you too.” He murmured. Dropping smacking kisses onto the crowns of their head’s to break the moment he let them go.

“Come on.” Jemma grabbed his hand, a pleased smile on her face. “Sleep.” She led their rag-tag little family back to the sleeping platform. This time instead of each staying carefully rolled in their own blankets, they dog-piled into the soft warmth and were snoring within seconds.


	14. Chapter 14

Clanging and the grating tone of the intelligent raccoon woke Clint some time later. He was warm and comfortable and had exactly zero reasons to leave his warm cocoon. For another two days, of indeterminate length, what was time anyway?, he had nothing to do. No mine to climb down, no ring to stare at for hours, and no SHIELD mission sending him to far flung places to be shot at or shoot people. He could sleep as long as he wanted, and after the cathartic release of the night before, he actually felt like catching up on the years of shut eye had was running a deficit on.

Dragging the edge of a blanket over his face, he was asleep again between one breath and the next.

= + =

Pulling his foot away from whatever it was that was tickling him, he tried to float back into the dark embrace of sleep. The tickle followed, rucking his blanket off both his feet and exposing them to the cool air of the ship. A damp rasp followed the tickle. Just before tiny teeth sunk into the thick skin of the big toe on his right foot.

“FELICETTE!” He sat bolt upright, pulling both feet under him to safety.

The unrepentant cat was sitting a foot in from the edge of the sleeping platform, twitching her whiskers at him in annoyance for taking away her toy.

“Mreow.” She flicked her tail as she jumped off the bed when it was clear he wasn’t going to sacrifice his toes to her in the way the proper order of the universe said he should. Having abandoned him, she meandered across the room, stopping to sniff at corners of furniture and random spots on the floor, she ended up under the table they had all sat around the night before. Sitting on Gamora’s feet, she stared up at the woman, unblinkingly, until she was scooped up and deposited on Gamora’s lap.

He could hear her purring from across the ship as Gamora’s long fingers threaded into the cat’s thick fur and scratched gently. Gamora was the only one in sight. He would worry about the girls being out of his sight, but they couldn’t actually go far. In truth, he was thankful not to have to face them after the unexpected honesty from the night before. A little time to regain his equilibrium was welcome.

Flopping back onto the bed, he stared at the gun-metal grey roof of his section of the ship. He might have wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew himself well enough to know he wouldn’t any time soon. Talking about Phil the night before had memories of the other man running around his head in a technicolour carousel.

They had edged around their feelings for years before acting on them. The incendiary addition of Natasha to their tight partnership had exploded all of those things left unsaid for years. The lust filled glances, and touches that lingered that little bit too long. 

God, that explosion had been spectacular. And Clint had seen a lot of explosions in his day, so his base of comparison was vast. Heat and energy that had gone on and on and on.

All of Clint’s past experience had told him that after that burst of lust and release, the interest of the other person in him as a person would wane, if there had been an interest in more than his body to begin with.

Phil had been the exception to the rule.

He almost always was.

The only rule he apparently wasn’t the exception to was getting bored of Clint and just forgetting he existed. Clint was done. He couldn’t have his heart broken again. It was a promise he had made himself before, but this time he would keep it.

He might be starting to feel more Zen, that didn’t mean he could work with Coulson when they got back to Earth. He could do what he already did and ask Fury for re-assignment. Maybe base himself in Europe, he liked the Mediteranean coast in Croatia. Or maybe Australia, the surfing there was Bomb.

Or he could leave the agency all together.

He had a couple of nice bank accounts under various names. Enough to start a new life. Maybe open an animal shelter. Spend his days petting animals that just needed a happy home.

“Clint!” Skye dropped onto the bed next to him, the force behind her drop enough to make them both bounce. “HI!” She grinned widely.

“Are you high?” He squinted at her, noting the too wide pupils and smile. The exuberance of her greeting after seeing each other every day for months. It all equaled drugs.

“May.be.” She turned the word into two.

“Well, have fun.” Finally abandoning the bed, he left her to it.

“Bye Clint!” She called.

In the reflection on a shiny surface in the kitchenette he could see her waving happily at his back.

It was going to be an interesting few days in deep space if there were recreational drugs floating around. He wouldn’t be partaking, the need to watch his people’s backs too great to risk it. But the girls were welcome to let loose if they wanted to. They deserved it after the year they had had.


	15. Chapter 15

After finally abandoning the bed, Clint spent the first morning investigating the bottom level of the ship. It didn’t take long. A single corridor ran from another sitting area behind the ladder he had used to descend and sitting directly under the cockpit, to a closed door underneath the airlock.

Jemma and Drax were lounging on the cushines, her glossy eyed grin told him Skye wasn’t the only one who had partaken.

In the other direction, along the walls, were three doors on each side. One of them was open. Quill was lazing on the tiny cot that took up 85% of the space, a screen floating in front of his face. Clint let him be, the annoying man was the last person on the ship he wanted to talk to.

“I am Groot?” The tree had opened the door across and down one from Quill’s and was watching Clint watch Quill.

“Oh, hi Groot.” Clint stood looking at the other being, unsure about what they wanted.

“He wants to know what you are doing.” Rocket translated, poking his head out of the same room and grinning, tiny sharp teeth on stark display.

“Just exploring.” He shrugged at them.

“That’s the bathroom.” Rocket pointed at the final door. “There. You’re all explored. Get lost.”

Quickly using the bathroom, he hadn’t realised how much he needed it until it was pointed out, he left everyone to it. Clint climbed back into the less claustrophobic upper level and set about finding food. He had no idea what time it was, but his stomach was telling him he had missed at least one if not two meals.

The cupboards were stocked, but not a single thing looked vaguely familiar. The writing was illegible and the images on them left him more lost then when he started.

“This one is good.” A green hand darted in over his shoulder and grabbed a box with a purple square with black dots on the the label. “It’s amrator.” She opened the box and dropped it into a bowl. Filling it with water, she shoved it into what served as their microwave. After the ding, he watched with interest as she pulled it out. The dark purple, almost purple cube it had started as had turned into a lilac mush. Purple porridge.

“Purple porridge.” Apparently his inside voice was all used up.

“What is ‘porridge’?” She blinked at him blankly.

“A breakfast food that looks sort of like that.” He shrugged at her continued look of mystification. “Never mind.”

He followed her example and joined her at the table once it dinged. 

Swirling his spoon through the purple mush, he took a deep breath and tried it. Flavour burst across his tongue. Rose water was chased by pear and then maple covered bacon.

“Oh my god. What  _ is  _ this?” He cut his eyes from his bowel to Gamor and back.

“Amrator.” She said again, with a heavy undercurrent of ‘I already told you this, why are you asking again?’.

“Right. Sorry.” He stuck another spoonful of rainbows and sunshine into his mouth to stop anything else she would judge him for from escaping.

It was just as good as the first try.

= + =

The two days to get from the Shi’a’s planet to Xandar seemed both endless and lightening quick. It was a feeling Clint knew well, long years of missions waiting for days on end to take a single, perfect shot. Skye and Jemma struggled with it a little more. The inactivity, unable to understand the media the other ship’s inhabitants were consuming, and the general disappearance of their hosts into their respective quarters.

Gamora and Drax appeared each morning to workout and spar, which on the second day Clint got in on, but otherwise it was long hours of staring out into the never ending darkness of space.

“We will be passing into the outreaches of the Xandarian home system in an hour or so and then while we sleep the Milano will settle into orbit.” Gamora updated them over their third ‘breakfast’. “It has taken us a little longer due to a solar storm in their neighbouring sun that we needed to avoid. Have a good day.”

Mug of not quite coffee in hand, Skye settled herself into the co-pilot’s seat. Jemma followed Gamora downstairs, the two women getting on surprisingly well. Or not so surprising really when Clint thought about it, they were both made of steel even if they showed it in different ways. The spark and hurricane of energy that was Skye was more similar to Quill, but thankfully less annoying and pompous, more controlled. He thought that without Jemma’s calming presence and the structure of SHIELD, she could have been a lot more like the spaceman.

“What are you going to do when we get home?” Skye broke the silence.

She wasn’t looking at him, staring pointedly out the front windshield instead. It gave him room to pretend he didn’t know exactly what she was talking about. He could pretend she wasn’t finally asking about his confessions from that first night on the Milano. He could pretend it was something light, make a joke about beer and steak, and she could let him. He didn’t want to though. They might never get home and any decision he made would be moot, but not having to worry at it like a sore tooth anymore would be a relief.

“Talk to him.” Those three words might be the most adult thing he had ever said. Or every sead and actually meant. “Actually talk. About feelings and shit.” And then he said that… Oh well it was never going to last long.

“Oh yeah? That ‘and shit’ is desperately important, can’t forget that.” She smirked at him.

He pinged a well folded square of paper at her, hitting her directly between the eyes. She swatted at her face too late to stop it connecting. Breaking into giggles, she picked it up between two fingers and sent it winging back to him, too wide to hit him. Plucking it from the air he sent it back, hitting her left shoulder just where it was resting against the chair, wedging between her flesh and the furniture. For a time they sent it back and forth without saying anything. Her aim getting better each time.

“And shit…” He let the words drift off. “I’ll let him go. I’ _ ve _ let him go.” He said, stronger the second time. He had never been the type to back down from a fight, or try and make someone do something they didn’t want. He had had enough people try and control him to want to do it himself.

The sadness in Skye’s eye wasn’t what he was expecting to see. Anger maybe, even supportive resolve. Not sadness.

“You really love him, don’t you?” She twisted the square of paper between her fingers, watching him.

He nodded, his voice stuck somewhere in his chest.

“Then fight.” Dropping the paper, she tried to wrap her smaller hands around his life roughened digits. “I don’t even know how many times I wanted to fight, for someone or something, but didn’t because it was too hard, or hurt too much. Fight Clint. If you love him and he is worth it, ignore what we say, if he is truly everything then fight.”

Choking back the block on his voice, he smiled sadly at her. “He is worth it. He’s everything.”

“Okay then. And I’ll help,and so will Jemma.” She punched him in the arm, breaking the mood. “Holy shit!! Look.” She pointed out the window.

Looking out the window, he knew immediately what had caught her attention. “Fuck me.” He breathed.

Even after everything he had seen, after fighting a literal alien invasion over New York, there were apparently things in the universe able to surprise him.

“Is that?” He asked.

“Yep.” She confirmed.

“An  _ actual _ flat planet?” 

“Yep.”

“Photo?” He asked.

“Photo.” She confirmed. Somehow, by ways of millennial magic he assumed, she had kept hold of her phone over the long months. Only turned on a few times to take a photo here and there, she turned it on and took two more. One of just the planet, to fuck with the flat earthers when they got home according to her, and another a selfie with the planet in the distance for posterity.

“Awesome.” He approved of them both.

= + +

Gamora, Jemma, and Quill appeared soon after the flat planet disappeared from their windows. In search of lunch, the group sat and chatted about nothing that made any sort of impact on Clint’s thoughts. He was ready to go home and he was thinking about how to achieve that. They had used their only bargaining chip to get off the mining planet and had no idea what they would do when they got to Xandia. Between the three of them, they had a wide range of skills, but would they be able to make their way on an alien planet where they weren’t being ordered around?

He had to hope so. They had half a day left to figure it out.

After lunch, he waylaid Gamora before she could disappear down stairs.

“Can we talk?” He asked the woman. “Privately?” He didn’t want to worry Skye or Jemma if they weren’t already thinking about their next steps.

With a slight head tilt she indicated he was to follow her. Skye and Jemma watched with curious eyes as they disappeared down below. The second his head was below the lip of the floor he could hear them whispering. He didn’t need to hear the words to know what they were saying, over the last few days he had only ventured below to use the bathroom, why was he going there now?

Gamora closed the door behind them. There was barely room for them both. He stayed by the door, unwilling to infringe on her space any more than he already was. She took a seat on the bed and waited. Watching him all the while.

For once he thought he was starting to understand how others felt when his own eyes were on them. As if someone was seeing all of his past mistakes and future triumphs. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling or thought.

“What is it you wished to speak to me about Mr. Barton?” 

“Xandar is where you are going.” He wasn’t sure how best to ask his question. “Skye, Jemma, and I want to go home. To Earth…”

“And you don’t know how to get there?” She finished for him.

He shrugged.

“You might be able to bargain a trip home. Or the Xandarian’s might drop you off as thanks for your help in returning Thoran Rul. I’m sorry I can’t help more.”

There was clear dismissal in her eyes. She didn’t have anything else to say on the subject. But he wasn’t quite done.

“And the Milano? Would you take us?”

“No.” She wavered between expanding on her refusal. “This ship is owned by Quill. We work together and all have a say on what missions we take. But in the end, the Milano is his. And he won’t return to Earth. I can not tell you why.”

Clint understood the delicate line of protecting the dark, hidden parts of your teammates. He knew about secrets and old pain.

“Thanks anyway.” He left this time. 


	16. Chapter 16

Falling asleep that night proved almost impossible. The anxiety of not knowing their next move buzzed through his veins even as his mind was still. Long years of drifting away from the physical discomfort coming into play. On the opposite side of the bed Jemma and Skye were curled up together, they had spent the time after dinner stargazing out of the porthole on the wall above their sleeping platform and fallen asleep where they had lay.

He had kept to himself after talking to Gamora and only shifted to the bed once their quiet conversation had petered out. After hours lying there staring at the ceiling, he couldn’t take it anymore. Out of practice, he thought if he stayed there for one more second he would become the first documented case of human spontaneous combustion. He drifted from the sleeping platform to the kitchen. Standing staring at the almost-coffee dispenser didn’t make it go any slower or faster. Which of them he was hoping for even he wasn’t sure of.

Mug in hand, he drifted again. He wasn’t sure when he ended up back in the cockpit, but his mug was empty and a planet was growing outside where there had just been empty space when he went to bed. Greens and blues under a layer of white of an alive planet could almost allow Clint to kid himself into thinking he was looking at Earth. 

The shapes of the continents weren’t right, the  _ number _ of continents wasn’t right. And the poles weren’t white and ice covered. As much as he wanted to believe they were home, he couldn’t. Watching their destination come closer, gave his mind just enough to focus on to let him sleep.

= + =

“Clint?” Skye called, from the frustration in her voice it wasn’t the first time she had called him name.

“Oi, Nick Nolte wake up.”

Something small and hard pinged off the side of his head. Picking it out of the air, he returned it from whence it came. “Fuck off Quill.” Finally opening his eyes, Clint saw that att of them were there. Jemma stood just behind Skye with Felicette purring in her arms. Groot was waving a flower in the cat’s face. Gamora and Rocket were in the pilot and co-pilot’s seats. Finally, Quill. The annoying bastard was getting ready to throw another bean at him from the other passenger’s seat.

“The whole gang's here.” It was the first time since they had arrived on the ship that all of them were in the same room. It was fucking crowded.

“We will be landing at the Nova spaceport in half an hour.” Rocket explained. Sharp teeth glinting in the light from the rapidly approaching atmosphere as the creature grinned at him. “Gonna off-load the extra dead weight.”

“I am groot.” Groot chastined.

“Yeah yeah. We’re gonna be letting our guests off.” Rocket amended, barely kinder than the first time.

Clint ignored him in favour of watching the planet below them. It was a magnificent sight, Phil would have gotten a kick out of it if Clint was still in a position to describe it to him. The fake click of a camera shutter distracted him from the spiral his thoughts would have otherwise taken. Skye had her phone out and was snapping pictures.

“Smile.”

He complied, grinning at her with the obvious shape of a continent that wasn’t on Earth behind his head.

“Nice.” She held her hand out for a high five.

The landing was nothing like he had imagined. Even after the smooth lift-off. There was no bone grinding gravity, or fiery ocean over the windshield. If he hadn’t been looking out the window and watching the rapidly growing landmass, he wouldn’t have known their silent flight through space was coming to an end.

Crowds of people jostled every which way. Some ambling along with no discernable need to rush, while others dodged and wove between every millimeter of space they could find. Every single one of them was in a dark blue uniform.

“Nova Corp.” Quill named them. “Military police force.”

That would have been Clint’s first and only guess, military uniforms apparently looked exactly the same in every corner of the universe. Boring.

The three new ex-pat’s followed the other’s through the crowd and into a quieter administrative area. Two guards at the door eyeing them all wearily, and one of them leaving the entrance and leading them through the deserted offices.

God even Admin looked the same, never ending bland cubicles. He could almost imagine turning a corner and seeing Agents Watson and Annunzio scowling their way through mission reports and HR complaints.

“Nova Prime. The… Guardians… are back.” The Guard sighed over his announcement. Clint didn’t blame him, and he thought the Avengers was a bad name. Who called themselves the Guardians?

“I trust you were successful?” A prim woman asked, straight backed and turned away from them. Silhouetted against massive windows, Clint couldn’t tell much about her other than she was also in the uniform that everyone else he had seen on this planet so far. From the office, he guessed she was high ranking, probably the top ranking person in the, what had Quill called it? Nova Corp?

“Sure were.” Quill dropped the box in the middle of the desk that drew all of the attention in the room. It hit the glass with a ringing clang. 

The woman turned, a deep frown marring her face. “Be careful!” She barked. “Your payment will be in your account shortly.” She dismissed them after checking the box over to make sure it hadn’t been damaged, by its theft or Quill’s rough handling.

“Wait.” Clint stepped forward even as the others stepped back, leaving him symbolically alone in the large room.

“Clint?” Skye asked, but he ignored her.

“Please. My friends and I, we helped the, the Guardians,” it felt as weird to say as it had been to hear, “get your Thoran stuff back. Now we need help. We just want to go home. Earth?” He didn’t know what name they would know Earth by.

“What sort of backwards planet names themselves ‘Earth’, that’s almost as bad as if you called yourselves dirt or water.” Raising an eyebrow she ran her eyes over him in severe judgement. “We own you nothing. Our deal was with the Guardians. Whatever help you gave them, is between you and them. Good bye.”

= + =

“FUCK!” Clint kicked the wall viciously. “Fuck!” Breathing hard, he growled at a pair of passing Nova Corp members. “What?”

They hurried away without meeting his eye. Skye and Jemma had a bit more backbone to them, but looked just as nervous. Almost scared. Clutching each other’s hands, they were a few feet away and not moving.

Fuck.

He didn’t want to scare them. Never.

“Sorry.” The fight drained out of him. Slumping against the wall he had been trying to kick into the afterlife, he sat on the sun warmed stone. 

“What is going on Clint?” Jemma detangled her hand from Skye’s and crouched in front of him.

The rest of the group were in a semi-circle around them, watching or not as their personality dictated.

“I don’t know how to get us home.” He told the ground. Every step where he should have protected them, he had failed. Failed them, failed the Avengers, failed Phil. So far he had been able to hide how much of a fuck up he was from them, but not anymore. Phil had known and accepted it. Or in his words ‘you are not a failure Clint Barton, and I’ll prove it to you’. For years he had kept that promise, until Clint had failed to save him. To protect him. It was the ultimate failure. And now he couldn’t even get him and the others home.

“And neither do we. Not right now. But we’ll work it out. Together.” Shuffling awkwardly until she could sit next to him. Pressed close enough that he could almost forget where he ended and she started. It didn’t take long for Skye to follow suit, bracketing him. When they had sat like this at home, watching the stars or chatting while looking at the ring, he had been engulfed by their differing products, vanilla and coconut for Jemma and a more complex floral-fruity thing for Skye, he could identify rose and raspberry before getting lost. Here they all smelt the same, slightly caustic soap over a ground in layer of dirt.

He missed the warring scents.

He missed familiar skys that stayed where they were fucking meant to.

And he missed Tasha and Phil.

While he had found more family in Skye and Jemma, he hadn’t forgotten the family he already had.

“I miss coffee. Proper coffee.” Skye announced.

“My lab. And tea. I don’t care what you say, the faux-coffee is head and shoulders better than the faux-tea.” Jemma added.

“Phil.” Clint whispered. “I miss Phil. And my bow. Steak!”

“Oh my god! Steak!”

“With guinness.”

The three of them groaned in symphony.

It didn’t get them any closer to getting home, but it reminded them all that they were in this together and were missing home just as much as the others.

“Come on! Enough loafing around!” Jemma patted his knee and then used him to lever herself off the ground. “Mr Quill. What would the services of you and your craft cost to return us to Earth?” She was tiny compared to the man she was confronting.

Quill scoffed. “Even if there was a price I would accept to go back to that hellhole, you couldn’t afford it.”

“Quill!” Gamora stepped in, forcing a bit of distance between the two.

Skye got up to stand beside Jemma, lending her support. Clint followed a second after, not quite done with his pity party but not willing to let the other two stand alone.

“No! No! The Milano is my ship, and I’m not going anywhere  _ near _ Earth. Not that whole fucking quadrant. It might be your home but it isn’t mine.” Quill yelled.

Stomping away, the rest of them were left to stare after him.

“I’ll talk to him.” Gamora assured before stalking off after Quill.


	17. Chapter 17

Left to wait for Gamora to talk Quill around, and he was confident she would, they wandered to the edge of the large open walkway giving themselves a spectacular view of the city. Buildings interspersed with lush greenery stretched for a far as the eye could see. It was quite possible the cleanest urban area Clint had ever seen. Singapore came in a close second. 

There didn’t seem to be any single dominant species. Most of them were vaguely humanoid, but skin colour ranged from snow white to one person that was so black they seemed to suck in the light around them, and everything in between.

“How does that work?” Clint asked Jemma, pointing at the walking, talking blackhole.

“Oh! I’m not sure. Melanin on its own wouldn’t account for that. Maybe a mix of melanin and a naturally occuring black pigment in their biology? Something akin to Vantablack, but mixed with the same natural occurrence as octopus ink.” She mused.

“Nobody tell Anish Kapoor, he’ll try and sue the whole species for license infringement.” Clint grinned. Jemma burst into delighted laughter.

“Oh, he would, wouldn’t he?” She grinned right back.

Skye was watching them both like they had lost their minds. He had always been closer to Skye, their broken childhood and subsequent cynical outlook on life had bonded them in a way he and Jemma had never managed. It was nice to find something they could bond over.

“Who the fuck is Anish Kapoor?”

That sent Clint and Jemma into further, louder peels of laughter. It left them both hunched over, clutching their stomachs from laughing too hard.

“Who the  _ fuck is Anish Kapoor? _ Stop laughing!” She was seconds away from stomping her foot as if she was a three year old, silver-spoon heiress deprived of the extra large slice of cake she wanted and had to settle for only a large slice instead.

“I’m sorry. Sore.” Jemma gasped. “I can’t…”

Their laughs subsided into gasps for breath and then madly grinning.

“Right, sorry.” Clint tacked on lamely.

“Are you all done?” Gamora cut in before Skye could ask who Anish Kapoor was again.

“Sure.” Clint chuckled. “How did it go?”

Instantly Jemma and Skye sobered up, the mirth falling off Jemma’s face while Skye gave up trying to get an answer from her. They all watched her impatiently, their hopes pinned on her response.

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head, not even looking at them.

Clint didn’t need ehr to keep going, just from her averted eyes he knew. He knew that she hadn’t been able to talk Quill around. “It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but that is what you were meant to say. Or so said Phil.

“This might help” Drawing a small device from one of her many pockets, she tapped it a few times, held her thumb against the screen for a long second, and passed it over.

It looked like a smartphone but with no buttons. He turned it over in his hand a few times, twisting it this way and that, watching the light bounce off the smooth edges.

“Here. Thumb here. I’ve put some credits on it. Not enough to get you all home, but it will get you by for a little while until you figure something out.” Gamora quickly showed him a few things and then said goodbye. Drax, Rocket and Groot following when she left.

“See ya”

“Farewell.”

“I am Groot.”

The tree looked the most sad to be leaving them. He crouched and scratched a purring Felicette behind the ears, and waved morosely at the trio before trailing his group.

“ _ Alone again. All alone again. _ ” Clint crooned slightly off key. Shit, they were alone again. Adrift in the universe.

“Come on. Let’s find some food.” Skye set off without waiting to see if they would follow.

They had to run to catch up and not lose her in the thickening crowd. Being in amongst the multicultural crowd was as overwhelming as just watching it. He would have thought after Shi’a he would be used to the mixture of species, but something about being out in the light of day was punching him in the face with it.

They stopped at the first place they saw people putting something into their mouths. Clint recognised one of the dishes as the purple almost porridge stuff from the Milano.

Taking a table in the sun but away from the other people so they could hear themselves think, they quickly ordered. All of them stuck with something they knew, Clint and Jemma the purple porridge and Skye toast that wasn’t made from wheat bread. All of them got a mug of the faux-coffee.

“We need a plan.” Skye voiced what they were all thinking. “A place to stay, and then a way to pick up some cash. Or just the cash, the weather seems nice, we can camp out.” She shrugged, unconcerned about having a roof over her head.

Clint would happily find a corner to sleep in but he knew Jemma wasn’t as used to roughing it as Skye and him. Pulling out the phone, for lack of a better word, and tapped it to life. Now the question was, what should he search. House and apartment were probably too ‘Earthy’ to help, but he wasn’t sure what other word to use.

“Accomodation?” Skye suggested, noticing him staring at the screen looking probably more than a little lost.

That could work. A quick search brought up a couple of suggestions along with a little map icon. Some things were universal thank god. Tapping on it filled the screen with squiggles he didn’t understand, but the red dot was pretty self explanatory. That was where they were, and there were dots around them that showed where they could hopefully find somewhere to sleep tonight.

Leaning over his shoulder, Skye lightly tapped the one closest to their location. The screen changed in reaction to her move and photos filled the screen, images of a sleeping platform not dissimilar to the place they had slept on the Milano. Taking the device from him, Skye hunched over it and scrolled and tapped her way through more screens than he could follow and faster than he had ever seen anyone use a piece of tech. Man, she must have been jonesing for a techfix.

“This one.” She declared finally. Showing the screen to Jemma and Clint, she had chosen a place that looked almost exactly the same as the one Clint had looked at.

“Why? What was wrong with the first one?” Clint groused.

“It was three times the price as this one for the same thing. Just because it’s like ten minutes walk closer to the space port.” She scoffed.

“Sold.”

= + =

The guy they met at the ase of the towering complex was unlike any other species Clint had seen, which wasn’t that surprising as there seemed to be something new around every corner. A head taller than him, with pale blue skin and fiery red hair, he was glaring at the three Earthlings as they stumbled their way through introductions and the tour of the tiny apartment. It was barely big enough for one of them, let alone all three, but every cent they saved in living costs was a cent closer to getting home.

“We’ll take it.” Clint stuck his hand out for a handshake to seal the deal.

The owner looked at him with a slightly quizzical, slightly disgusted look on their face and held out his own phone-device.

“Thumb.”

After Clint pressed his finger to it, the little thing beeped. The owner bowed shallowly, barely more than a tip of his head, and left.

Left standing in their new home, they weren’t sure what to do next.

“Skye, try and find out how far Earth is and how much it would cost us to get home.” He held out the phone-device for her to take. “Jemma and I will head out and try and try and find some work. We’ll be back in an hour of so.” Even as they left, he realised they would need at least one more phone-device and whatever passed as a laptop on this planet.

Security work would be the best bet for him, he wasn’t as sure what Jemma could be put to work as. They headed back to the spaceport first. Transport hubs always needed more security people. It took exactly as long as he thought to find the administrative centre of the complex, people in the blue uniform of the Nova Corp and others in what must be their version of business suits were streaming in and out of a door of the blandest of the buildings. Another score for universality of bureaucracy.

“Appointment?” The person behind the front desk asked without looking up.

“I don’t have one. I wanted to talk to someone about a job.” Clint lent up against the tall counter top. The months deprived of his bow had caused a loss of muscle mass, but the long hours of forced physical labour had him lean. He just had to hope the person behind the counter was interested in what he had to offer.

The eyes that finally left the workstation and travelled slowly along the line of his bicep told him he was in luck. He wasn’t ready to follow up on the suggestion, but it was a play he had used before and would use again if needed. “Um… there… um aren’t any jobs going.” Their eyes finally met Clint’s. They were slit pupiled like a snake’s, except the colour which was a vibrant, almost violent purple. That was awesome and if he wasn’t concerned that coloured contacts would fuck with his eyesight, he might consider looking into them when he got home to replicate the look.

“Nothing? I’m in security. Protection and what not.” Subtly he flexed. “I can point out three holes in your physical security right now.” He grinned winningly.

“There aren’t any holes in our security.” A beefy guy, who would have passed for a human bodybuilder on Earth, spat from beside the desk having walked up while Clint was talking and overheard.

“Sure. If that’s what you want to believe.” If they were going to be dicks about it, he could always break in overnight some time and steal the shit he needed to get them all home.

Beef-cake glared at him, arms crossed across his gloriously, no not gloriously, overly worked-out chest. An unspoken dare.

“Wager than. I tell you two of them and you give me a job. Then I’ll tell you the third.” He smirked and waited knowing the other guy would fold. He also knew better than to offer his hand to shake on it. Picking up the local customs was high on his priority list. If he had been thinking, he would have asked Gamora to run some of it down for him.

“Accepted.” Beeferoni nodded in the same manner as their new landlord.

“The scanner at the side entrance is only a card scanner, without someone watching it you could easily pick-pocket a card from someone leaving and gain access that way. Then you have the not so concealed turrets in here. They only cover 57% of the floor, with an extra two you could bump that to 89% and an extra 3 to 92% without anyway to get to the internal doors in the uncovered 8%.” His smirk grew in direct proportion to the deepening frown on muscleman’s face.

“Welcome to the team Mr…?”

“Barton.”

= + =

Finding work for Skye and Jemma wasn’t as easy. The coding Skye was slogging her way through was nothing like the languages she was used to, as he knew from her many, many rants on the subject. And while Jemma was one of the brightest minds on Earth, Earth was light years behind Xandar in the sciences.

Even taking as many shifts as he could, he was only bringing in enough to cover their costs with a tiny bit extra to go into their ‘Get the Fuck Home’ fund. On their second day on Xandar, Skye had figured out they needed 30,000 credits to get home. 10,000 each. Gamora had left them with 20,000, but with the amount he was saving, it would take them five years to save up the extra. He had no idea how he would ever thank Gamora for the fortune she had left them.

Jemma was the next out of the gate. The job wasn’t anywhere close to her area, it wasn’t even in the sciences. She was just bored of watching Clint walk out the door all the time and Skye glared at the fourth-hand computer she had won from a woman who had been even more of a tourist than them. Waitressing. It wasn’t anything she had experience with and she almost got fired every day for the first week.

Getting things under control didn’t take longer than the first week though, her natural intelligence letting her memorise the menu and customer’s quickly. Physically it wasn’t a problem either. Before she might have struggled, used more to a sedentary laboratory-based life, but long months in the mines had hardened her more than even she had realised. 

The pay was worse than Clint’s by magnitudes, but it was in surplus to what they needed and could be put straight into their savings. 

Spending her days bent over the computer, Skye barely notices the slow changing of the season. Slower than on Earth and removed from seasons even before leaving their home planet, it didn’t register until she glanced out one evening to see the first flurry of snow swirling past the quickly darkening window. Startled, she watched the growing white-out for a long time.

Clint was worried about her. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember the last time she had left the tiny apartment and the circles under her eyes spoke of long, sleepless nights. With the weather closing in there was nothing he could do about it right that second, but he made a mental note to cajole her out of the building the next free day he had.


	18. Chapter 18

Dragging Skye out into the three inches of snow that had fallen overnight wasn’t the last time Clint or Jemma had to make sure Skye went out. By unspoken agreement, they forced her out twice a week, one each, after they had realised there was a problem. The first few times she glared at them, resentful of the time away from trying to find them a faster way home. After realising she worked better after getting some exercise and sunlight, she went along with it placidly.

Sitting across from Clint with a cup of coffee-lite in her hands to fight off the chill from yet another snowstorm, she was idly watching Jemma flitter around the inside of the restaurant. It was probably too cold to be sitting outside, but Skye hadn’t wanted to go inside. Not yet.

“Do you think we are ever going to get home?” She asked out of the blue.

Clint took a moment to really look at her, the tension holding her shoulders too high and the sadness lurking inches thick in her eyes. He didn’t want to give her false hope. He didn’t want to strip away the last shred of hope she was holding onto away either.

“I don’t know.” If he couldn’t give or take, he could be brutally honest. “One day, yes probably. Anytime soon? I don’t know.”

She didn’t look any better for her honesty. Nodding, she went back to watching Jemma.

Five minutes later she asked, “Do you think they are looking for us?”

“Yes.” That he was more sure of. They would have looked for them. Would have tried everything. Slowly the team would have been pulled onto other things, but some of them would work on it when they had a second. A few of them might have stayed on it. Just one or two.

“But they can only look for so long, and they're never going to find us. We’re literally on the other side of the galaxy.” Struggling to put a smile on her face, she finally turned to look at him again. “But  _ we _ can get us back. I think I have enough of a grasp of the tech here to find a job. There isn’t anything else I can do.” The second smile was minor degrees more truthful. 

Setting her mind to it, she succeeded. Unlike the other two, she didn’t take a steady job, but instead went for one-off or short stints. While it wasn’t as reliable, it was significantly better money and as the snows finally stayed gone, they were half-way to the rest of the money they needed. Instead of the five years they had thought they would need, they were on track to getting it done in one.

= + =

“See you later!” Skye chirped as she ran out the door.

It was Clint’s day off and he had zero plans of getting out of the nest of blankets he had made in one corner. Waggling a couple of lazy fingers, he shuffled further down into the delicious softness.

The next time he stuck his head out of his nests, the apartment was dark and silent. Skye should have been back hours ago. Heading out for the first meet and greet should have taken an hour, two tops. Then there was travel there and back. No way he calculated it should she still not have been home.

The only other possibility was she had swung out to the restaurant on the way home and was out with Jemma somewhere.

The way he saw it, there were two options; stay here and wait for one or both of them to get home, or go out and see what he could find.

Action was almost always his preferred choice. Clambering upright, he quickly got changed before pausing. The black case beside the door might come in handy, but what would he tell the girls if they were fine?

Fuck it, Skye was more important than looking silly.

Swinging the strap over a shoulder, he raced out the door. The fifteen minute walk to Jemma’s job was interminably wrong. Every step resounded in his soul, telling him that something was wrong. That Skye was in trouble that she couldn’t get herself out of. 

Standing in the shadows across the street, he could see Jemma was still bustling between the tables. It was long after her shift, but it wasn’t abnormal for her to work extra hours. Every credit helped. Every credit got them another inch closer to going home.

The weight that dropped into his stomach wasn’t a stone, it was a whole fucking mountain. Pulling out the phone-device that work had assigned to him, he opened the app Skye had illegally placed on it. A map of the city with three dots on it appeared, two of them were almost on top of each other, dark purple for himself and light blue for Jemma. Skye’s own scarlet red was on the other side of the map. Miles away from where she should have been.

Without a spark of guilt, he used some of their hard earned savings to jump a cab. The faster he got there, the happier he would be. Unlike on Earth, there was no driver to bribe or threaten into going faster, instead an AI that wouldn’t talk to you wove him through the city. They went the exact speed limit and not a mph faster. 

Getting out a block away from where Skye’s tracker was, he quickly scaled the roof of a building. The area was more industrial than any other area of the city he had seen in the almost year they had been here. Perversely, it wasn’t totally unfamiliar to him though, he had spent thousands of hours in industrial areas in hundreds of different cities on every populated continent. The need for large open spaces for storage and works was the same and early knock-off was universal.

The roof he chose was cluttered with heating and cooling vents, a couple of doors into the interior of the building, and broken chairs and tables he assumed were used by the staff on their version of smoke break. Moving furtively through the shadows, he was able to be crouched down behind the small wall that ran around the edge of most buildings on Xandar. 

The phone-device told him Skye was in the next building over. Peeking over the edge of the wall, he scanned the open area between the two structures. A single goon was lounging against the single door he could see. The guy looked bored, obviously not expecting anyone to come looking for the hacker. Not before they finished whatever it was they wanted her for.

Keeping his eyes on the man below, Clint unzipped the black case had reached in for the beautiful bow Jemma and Skye had gotten him for ‘Christmas’. They had chosen a day just before the end of the calendar year to celebrate the Earth holiday, each saving a little bit from their jobs by taking extra shifts to buy the other two a present. Clint and Skye hadn’t wanted to, arguing for saving every penny, but Jemma had made the imminently sound argument that they needed something a little closer to look forward to and to remember to live their lives especially as they didn’t know when they were going to be able to get home. Instead of the cool smooth metal he was expecting, his fingers sunk into warm, moving fur.

Bright eyes in a dark abyss watched him unblinking. Felicette.

“What are you doing kitten?” He had no idea when she had crawled into the securely closed case. There was something not quite right about Skye’s cat. Scritching behind her ears until she was purring, he finally withdrew the beautiful bow and small quiver of arrows. He would have liked more, but he would have to work with what he had. 

“Mreow.” Tiny claws dug through his pants into his leg and then through his shirt until Felicette was perched precariously on his shoulder.

Compensating for her weight, he raised the bow, drew and fired. An almost invisible line trailed after the silent projectile. He knew the second it hit and anchored in the opposite wall just above a window. Tying the end of the line off he, flipped his bow upside down slipped it over the top of the line and kicked off the top of the wall.

Heartstopping milliseconds passed as he sailed across the chasm, he had enough momentum behind him for his boots to break through the glass. Letting go of one side of the bow, he rolled over a suddenly empty shoulder to slow himself, Felicette bounding off him just before she would have gotten squished.

Any element of surprise was gone. He had to move and he had to move Now. Using the last of the momentum from his entrance, he rolled to his feet and was running. As he moved, he scanned the area, counting the number of people, where they were, and where they were in the building.

He hadn’t seen Skye yet and Felicette had disappeared. The only thing for it was to start shooting and find his two wayward companions. The first three thugs fell to his arrows before they realised the crashing glass wasn’t just kids throwing stones and someone was attacking them. 

He was a scythe through wheat. They were only able to get one shot off before they were all downed and it only scored a graze across his shoulder.

The stairs were the only purpose built way from the upper walkway down to the ground, but if there were more of them waiting in the couple of rooms he hadn’t cleared, he wasn’t going to make himself an easy target. Instead he descended via one of the uprights, wrapping his hand around the metal and jumping, it was just enough to slow him fall.

It was a move he had made before, and every other time he had done it, Phil had been in his ear cursing at him. Doing it without the swear words was disconcerting. He hadn’t realised how much being called some combination of an irresponsible, reckless pig-headed walking OH&S disaster meant to him.

The first room was empty, as was the second. Taking a breath to steady himself, he threw open the door into the third and last room. Arrow drawn and ready to go, he stumbled to a halt.

“Hey Clint!” Skye grinned at him from a bare metal chair in the middle of the room, a loudly purring Felicette on her lap. “How’s it going? Clear to get out of here?” Standing she kept hold of her cat in one arm and bent to swing her bag over her other shoulder.

Walking past him, she patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for coming for me bud.”

“Uh, sure. No problem.” He trailed after her. Nothing about that made sense. “Wha? What happened?” He ran to catch up.

She didn’t answer until they had left the building, stopping quickly to kick one of the groaning thugs.

“He’s a dick.” She shrugged. “Anyway. I turned up for the job, meet the client and all that shit, when two guys jumped me.” She threw a thumb over a shoulder back at the guy she had kicked. “Drugged me. Dickheads. Woke up here and knew you would be by to pick me up.”

Made sense, except one thing. “Why were you alone?” He wasn’t even sure why he was asking, he should just be glad she was okay, but his gut was telling him something was off. 

“Um, dunno…”

Oh, oh! There was so something she wasn’t saying. He stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. 

“Sskkyyee…. What’s going on?” He drew her name out as long as he could.

She gathered Felicite off her shoulder and squeezed the cat enough for the cat to meow uncomfortably. “Sorry,” She muttered to the kitten. “I, um, I wasn’t alone. Not to begin with. Right up until you attacked even. Goon one and two were yelling at me, threatening blah blah blah, while Bossman watched.” She started walking again. “Then, um. This isn’t crazy!” She stopped walking again, glaring at him for something he hadn’t done or said yet. “ _ I’m _ not crazy.” Her glare only grew.

“Skye, we are on an alien planet after being sent through some sort of wormhole. Nothing you say is going to make me think you are crazy.” He tried to reassure her. From the look on her face, he was only partially successful.

“Okay...okay. So, there was the crash, I assume that was you. Some screaming. You again. Then Felicette came in. How did she even get here? Wait, never mind.”

They were still walking as she talked, slowly the dim uninhabited industrial area was giving way to more populated suburbia. He was watching her as closely as their surrounding, making sure their friends didn’t have any friends of their own. That they were safe. There wasn’t any foolproof way to make sure there wasn’t anyone coming after them, but there hadn’t been any sign so far and the increase in smiling families, out enjoying the mild spring night let him relax a little.

“So Felicette came in. And. Um. She ate them? I don’t know dude. She opened her mouth, giant ass tentacles came out and then all three of them were...gone.” She paused, waiting for Clint to freak out, or call bullshit, or react in some way to this incredible news.

“Cool.” He said easily.

Skye’s mouth fell open in incredulity. “That’s it?!” She screeched drawing the attention of a family of three walking on the other side of the road.

He scowled at her. “Be quiet.” He checked over each shoulder, staring a little harder at a deep pool of shadow under a not-pine tree.

“Are you serious right now?!” She whisper screeched.

Chuckling he started walking again. He wanted to get a little bit more distance between them and the warehouse before calling a car to get them home, but Jemma would be beyond worried at this point. Which, thinking about it he could do something about now. Tapping a quick message into his phone-device he hit send and shoved it back in a pocket.

She hurried to catch up and fell into step with him. “How are you not freaking out? My cat Tardis’ed a bunch of dudes!”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen it before.”

“Bullshit.” The word was spat out like a bullet, cutting through the air.

“Did you ever meet Goose? Fury’s cat?” He smirked at the renewed dumbfounded look on her face. “Phil told me they’re called Flerkins? I dunno. They’re some sort of alien.” He only flinched a little, internally, at Phil’s name.

“That’s so cool.” She breathed. “Are you are Flerkin? Hu? Is that what you are?” She scritched a purring Felicette between the ears. The cat licked the arm that was holding her close to Skye’s chest. “I’ll take that as a yes.”


	19. Chapter 19

“You’re insta famous!” Jemma announced too early the next morning standing in the centre of the apartment’s tiny main room. “Well. Not insta. Obviously. But you are on the news. And I guess, not you so much as something happened last night with arrows.”

Clint extricated one of his pillows and threw it at her, hitting her unerringly on the thigh with a soft thump. He and Skye hadn’t gotten back until late and had been up even later, the adrenalin from the fight making Skye jittery and Clint hadn’t felt like he could go to bed while she was still buzzing around. A second thump, on the floor not Jemma’s person, spoke volumes about Skye’s reaction to Jemma’s incursion on their sleep.

Jemma left them to it, he assumed. He could hear her humming as she moved out of the room and into the shoebox of a kitchen. The whistle of the kettle soon filled their home, the piercing noise driving into Clint’s skull and stopping him from going back to sleep. Kicking his covers off, he got to his feet and went in search of coffee. Absently scratching his belly, he made two coffees one handed. Keeping on for himself, he took the other back out into the main room. Toeing the pile of blankets in the opposite corner from his own pile. A hand snaked out and waggled long, nail bitten fingers at him.

“Nope. Gotta get up and get it from where I’m going to put it over here, on the windowsill.” He wandered lazily over to the window and carefully dropped the very full mug onto the wide wooden shelf. 

Just before it got too cold to drink, she would get up. It hadn’t failed him yet. Screwing around with Skye was fun, but it was going to make him late. He had work, and checking his phone-device, he saw he only had an hour and a half to get ready and get to work. It normally took him two hours, the spaceport further from the apartment than he would like.

Sitting in the security office for hours on end where nothing happened was driving him nutty. Before, before last night, he had been fine. The long months in the mines chipping away at his memories of the feeling of adrenaline running through his veins and the high of having done good.

Spinning lazily on his chair, he counted the holes in the ceiling tiles, twice, and still had hours to go. Turning back to the monitors, he was meant to be watching, he started counting there instead. First people, everyone he could see who had green skin, then black hair. He counted limbs. He counted people holding food versus people holding drinks versus people holding both. It kept him entertained for a while.

Just over an hour to go.

He was going to kill someone if he didn’t find something to keep him entertained. An blonde woman approached Chtrrl at the front desk. The hairs on the back Clint’s neck stood up in warning. Nothing about her obviously screamed danger, but he wasn’t going to ignore a lifetime of experience. The last time he had, he had ended up with a hole through his leg and an offer he couldn’t refuse. She stood straight backed talking to the receptionist. The rest of her body language was politely interested in what Chtrrl was saying to her, but an indefinable quality screamed military and indescribable danger to Clint.

Reaching for the phone, he dialed J, the muscleman from his first day and his current boss. J wasn’t the guys name, but it had about sixteen syllables with rolling vowels and clicks that Clint wasn’t even going to get attempt, he needed this job too much to accidentally call his boss a ghost fucking asswipe or something else because of an incorrectly pronounced name.

“You might want to get eyes on the lobby.” He spoke the second the ringing stopped.

The dial tone met him. J had never warmed to him, but there was a good basketload of grudging respect between them. J might not have said anything, but Clint could already see movement on his monitor. The number of armed Nova officers increased, most people wouldn’t have noticed, but it was Clint’s job to notice. Slowly they moved around the large, cavernous room until they could surround the woman if they needed to.

She straightened a last tiny bit, shoulders going back and hand falling to her side where she flexed her fingers. Lightning danced. 

Clenching her fist, she snuffed out the lights. With a forced smile on her face she did a perfect about face and walked out, ignoring the assembling forces. Three of the Nova Corp guys peeled off and followed.

Whatever that had been it had moved out of his area of interest and he was free to go back to being bored out of his fucking mind.

= + =

The sun had long since set by the time Clint was ambling out of the building at the end of his shift. Skye had messaged him a few hours earlier, a photo of her making a silly face at the camera with the view out of their window in the background. Smiling at the image, happy to see she had already bounced back from the events of the day before, he didn’t notice a figure fall into step beside him for a second that would embarrass him for the rest of his life. Especially if the end of his life was about to happen.

“Good Evening Mr Barton.” She said.

It was the woman from earlier, the dangerous Blonde. Clint had stood shoulder to shoulder with Captain America and Thor, but this woman who was closer to Skye’s height than his, made every instinct he had stand at attention.

How did she know his name?

“Hi.” He wasn’t going to be friendly until he knew who she was and what she wanted. Had the goons from last night sent her? The thought didn’t sit right in his head, but he couldn’t think of any other reason a stranger would be waiting for him.

“Are Doctor Simmons, Agent Woo and Skye with you?” She asked, still blandly friendly.

He stopped walking. He hadn’t been walking towards home, he wasn’t stupid enough to lead her to the others. But he still stopped.

“Who are you and what do you want?” One hand crept into his pocket and gripped the switchblade tightly. Reminding himself that he wasn’t unarmed in the face of this new threat.

“My name is Carol. Phil sent me.” Riffling through her pockets for a second, she withdrew a hand and uncurled her fingers.

A highly polished rock sat in the centre of her palm. 

He knew that rock. The edges knapped to a razor sharp edge. It was an obsidian Nez Perce arrowhead the fortune teller from Carson’s, an elder of that nation, had given him after his first show. He had given it to Phil instead of an engagement ring. Reverently, he ran a finger down the flute of the stone.

“Come on.” He headed for home.

= + =

“Director Fury and Agent Coulson contacted me after you all were taken.” Carol started her story, sitting cross legged on the floor with Felicette curled up on her lap. Absently she was patting the cat. 

“They had done everything they could, sent drones through to the grass planet. Nothing. Three months after you went missing, they called me. Told me about you all and asked if I could find you. The news from last night was my first clue.” She scowled at them all. “It’s a big universe.” She defended before they could say anything about how long it had taken.

None of them had much to say. Carol had swept in, asked where Woo was, apologised and then announced she had a way to take them home. Skye had demanded an explanation.

“But how do you know Fury and Coulson?” The hacker found her voice first.

It was a fair question Clint thought, and one he probably should have asked much earlier. The whole thing had thrown him more than it should have. Keeping himself occupied to stop him falling into a self-deprecating spiral. He had been out of the game for months, maybe years, it was okay that he wasn’t as sharp as he had been when he was running back to back ops for the top spy agency on their planet.

“Classified.” Carol grinned, knowing the reaction that was going to get.

Skye and Clint groaned, the hacker throwing a pillow at the other woman, while Jemma nodded like that was a completely acceptable answer.

“It really is classified though. Sorry.” She was serious this time.

Clint handed her and Skye a coffee, going back into the kitchen for his own mug and Jemma’s tea.

“This stuff is horrendous.” Carol said even as she continued to drink it. “Anyway, I have a ship lined up to take you home. There’s a shuttle waiting at the spaceport.”

“Awesome! Let’s go!” Skye was moving before she finished speaking, grabbing a bag and stuffing her blankets into it.

“Wait.” Clint finally found his voice. “We can’t just run off. Give us a few days, quit our jobs and things.” Now that going home was an immediate reality, he was nervous. Scared that he was going home just to lose everything again. 

“Whatever.” Carol shrugged. Her part in this was done. Stretching, she stood and made for the door. “The shuttle is the Century Falcon, can’t be accused of copyright infringement!” And then she was gone.

Skye turned on him, a storm on her face. “What. The. Actual. Fuck? Quit our jobs? Really! Clint, I want to go home.”

“Skye calm down.” Jemma commanded. It wasn’t often that the diminutive scientist raised her voice, but it always made the other two pay attention. “A day or two to do the right thing isn’t going to hurt us. I know I would like to buy a few things to take home if we don’t need to pay our own way.” Considering the matter closed, Jemma disappeared into her bedroom. 

= + =

For three days Skye mildly sulked. She had never been attached to a place or things. For her whole life she had been ready to pack her whole life into two or three bags and be ready to go in thirty minutes or less. Having to wait while Clint and Jemma tied up their lives was boring and she wasn’t afraid to let them know. By the end of the second day, Jemma drew up a shopping list and told her to make herself useful in the morning.

With something to do, she scuttled out of the apartment with barely a huff and with her help, they were ready to go just as the sun was setting. Loaded down with the few bits and pieces they wanted to take with them, they closed the apartment door for the final time.


	20. Chapter 20

In almost the same position he had been when they had approached Xandar more than a year ago, Clint watched the blue, green and white planet grow bigger through the wide window at the front of the ship that had carried them home. For having spent so long away, the five days on the large vessel had seemed to pass in a blink and also crawl by.

Insomnia had claimed him on the first night, and hadn’t let up yet. He knew he looked almost as bad as he had right after Tasha had beat Loki out of his head, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The loss of muscle mass from the months of deprivation on Shi’a hadn’t been completely erased from his frame, and dark purple circles made him look like he had two black eyes.

Even knowing he looked like death, he couldn’t convince himself to sleep. He hadn’t since Carol had told them they were going home. The delay he had manufactured, had been partially to try and start to wrap his head around the ramifications, and try and give him a chance to convince his body to sleep. It hadn’t worked.

“Home soon.” Skye slipped into the chair beside him. Her voice was as subdued as he had ever heard it.

“What are you going to do?” He realised he had know idea if she intended to go back to Shield. She hadn’t even been with the organisation for a year when they decided to take an involuntary planet-hopping trip. He wouldn’t be surprised if she walked away.

“Take a shower and sleep for like a week.” She quipped, expertly dodging the question.

He stared her down until she cracked.

“I don’t know. You and Jemma both have somewhere to go. I don’t and I don’t think I can go back to Shield.”

She was wrong on one count, he didn’t have anywhere more to go than she did. Not really. He couldn’t go back to his and Phil’s apartment and while Tasha would take him in for a little while, it wouldn’t be fair to her. Oh, he had a slew of safehouses he could run to, but nowhere that was home in the way she meant. That was something though. Something more than she had.

“I have a couple of places you can crash until you figure it out if you want. I didn’t keep you alive for this long just to get you killed by the rabbid New York rats.” He joked, the offer serious though.

“Thanks.” It was good to see her smile back.

Grabbing one of the scraps of paper he had accidently stuffed into his bag and wiggling his fingers at Skye until she surrendered one of the novelty pens she had not so secretly stashed in her stuff. Once he was in possession of the sparkly black pen that was topped with a fluff of pink and green fur, he scribbled a couple of addresses on the scrap and passed the whole lot back to her.

Reading it, she secreted the scrap into an area of her clothing he wasn’t going to think about and the pen back into the folds of her blankets. “Thanks” she said again.

Shuffling until she could press their shoulders together, they settled into easy silence and watched their home approach out of the window.

= + =

“Buckle Up!” Jemma chirped annoyingly as the door hissed shut on the shuttle that was the final step on their long road home.

They couldn’t see anything. No windows let in the light of their own sun or showed the brilliant blue oceans below them. The whole ride, which would take all of ten minutes, would be controlled by an AI and should set them down in the depths of the New Mexican desert. Skye had already made the requisite Area 51 joke. When Jemma and Clint had blinked owlishly and then looked quickly away, she had squawked with indignation and demanded to be told everything.

Clint couldn’t hold it, and his sniggers gave it away.

“I hate you.” She pouted.

If he hadn’t been strapped into a bucket seat, he would have planted a smacking kiss to seal her renewed disbelief in the fabled alien landing zone.

The movement of the tiny tin can of a shuttle wasn’t as smooth as the Milano, a rattling ka-chunk rolled through the vessel as it disengaged from the ship that had brought them home. He could feel the roar of the engine through the soles of his feet. Fifteen years flying quinjets from their inception as rattling death traps didn’t stop him from white knuckling the five minute discent.

The large cloud of dust from their landing on the dry canyon floor was still settling when he popped the door. Ochre yellow muted all of the other colours, even the bright blue sky was washed out.

Gathering their bags, they started south. Getting away from the landing site was a priority, for a couple of reasons. It would be taking off the second they were out of the blast zone, and the whole area would be crawling with nosy locals and the alphabet soup of agencies as soon as they could put their blandly uniform suits on. And none of them were ready to get picked up by the fucking FBI or CIA. If it wasn’t Shield, none of them could be bothered.

Having timed their arrival for a few hours after daybreak to avoid getting frostbite from the chilly desert nights, they all knew they had a long walk ahead of them and started without complaint.

It was about all Clint could hope for, even if in his deepest heart of hearts, he had been hanging for a fucking miracle which involved some iteration of a quinjet with Phil inside waiting to throw himself at Clint’s feet and beg for forgivness, swearing himself blue in the face that he still loved his husband and what he had seen in New York was a mistake or misunderstanding. He could barely admit that desire to himself let alone allow himself to think it in so manyy words when realistically, Phil had probably had his missing husband Francis Bertrand, not Clint Barton because secret agents, declared dead and was living in wedded bliss, or maybe not wedded but bliss all the same, with his childhood hero Captain Fucking America.

Glaring at the sand under his boots and then the too bright sun that was quickly sending the temperature into uncomfortable territory, he couldn’t honestly say he was happy to be back on Earth.

“It’ll be okay.” Skye bumped against him. Jolting him from the circle of depression his brain had spiraled into. “No matter what, you still got me.” She smiled sadly. “Oh!” She brightened. “Are you going back to Shield? Cause if not, and I don’t think I’m gonna, we should go into private security together! You the physical and me the cyber.” She grinned, her mouth continuing to spill words as her brain latched onto the idea and ran with it.

And it wasn’t actually the worst idea he had ever heard. In New York, or LA, or London, or any of the Asian mega-cities they could be pretty successful. He knew her coding had completely changed on Xandar and she had spent most of the trip home describing security upgrades she could make integrating the alien tech into Earth’s more antiquated systems.

“You’re leaving Shield?” Jemma stopped, staring broken heartedly at both of them.

“I. Um. Clint?” Skye stumbled and threw the bomb into his court.

Thanks ever so.

“Jemma, we.” He sighed and dropped his bags. “If I go back, I’ll be working with Rogers and Coulson. I can’t.” He begged her to understand without having to spell it out further.

She nodded her understanding then turned on Skye again.

“And you? There isn’t a messy break-up waiting for you at HQ.” She wasn’t going to let Skye weasel out of answering. “Were you just going to disappear without saying anything?”

Skye visibly flinched from the accusation and hurt in her best friend’s voice. Clint couldn’t save her from this, she needed to be honest. And no, he wasn’t going to take his own advice, do as he said not as he did!

Skye sat in a puff of dust, leaning back against her bags, she watched the clouds scuttle across the sky. “I wasn’t going to not tell you.” She said finally.

He had to think hard about the double negative in that for a second.

“I just hadn’t decided  _ when _ to tell you… But Jemma. You have a life at Shield. I was only ever there to stop me working  _ against them. _ ” It wasn’t anything they didn’t already know, it had been an open secret at the Antarctica base that Skye had hacked Fury’s personal computer and done something. It was the  _ something _ that had been up for vigorous debate. “I think I’m ready to go legit without the threat of prison keeping me in line.” Kneeling on the stoney ground she hurried to reassure Jemma, “but I’ll still be there, drop everything, fly across the world and help hide the body if you need me.”

Jemma didn’t look reassured though. She looked troubled.

“Jemma?” Clint prompted.

“Will you really?” She wasn’t watching them.

He had thought only Skye and he had abandonment issues, but apparently he was wrong. Jemma had always been so self-contained, scared and homesick yes, but never unsure.

“Both of us will be. You’re family.” Clint answered her.

Moving quicker than he had known she could, Skye launched herself across the small circle they had made and tackled the scientist in the the most violent hug Clint had ever seen.

“Mrreow.” Felicette complained, hopping out of the way of the two girls, seeking refuge in Clint’s lap when he didn’t appear to be going anywhere.

He gave them some time, finding patterns in the slowly blooming clouds above them. He could just hear whispers but not the words being exchanged.

= + =

Schlepping into the closest town to where they touched down, according to the imaging he had done before leaving the ship, it was well after midnight and they were all foot sore. Felicette was riding stretched across his shoulders, asleep, and the two girls were barely lifting their feet, shuffling along and stumbling on every rock or root.

He was faring a little better, which is why he was carrying the cat, but only marginally. A hot bath and two days of sleep were the only priorities on his list. The town, if it could even be called that, was tiny. It had more than one street, but each street only looked to have one house on it. The highway ran through the middle of it, and everything else was fanned out on either side. They had approached from the North, coming to a slow stop at the edge of the highway.

“Which way?” Skye asked through a face-splitting yawn.

Shrugging helplessly, he stepped away slight and tried to see anything that looked like a hotel or motel or b and fucking b. There was the neon sign of a truck stop a couple of blocks away, and the Post Office in the other. Nothing that would have a shower and bed. Aside from the bright lights of the truckstop, the only other building with lights on was the fire brigade just across from them.

Squinting in the bright light of the garage of the fire brigade, he hit a knuckle against the large wooden posts that made up the massive garage doors.

“Hello?” He called, his voice echoing through the large space. “Anyone home?” He knew someone would be, experience told him you would never find a firehouse completely deserted.

“Hola?” A head popped into view over a second floor balcony that overlooked the garage. “Hello. One second. Alejandro Visitantes.” The man called into the area he had appeared in as he disappeared back into the building. “Good Evening. Or Morning. Are you okay?” The man was talking even before he had reappeared. A large grin on his face, and hand out in greeting as he swept across the space.

It was almost a shock to see another human. After months of not humans, it was weird to be faced with someone without an extra limb, or pink eyes, or lighting in her hands. The fact that he was almost a head shorter than Clint even though he seemed to fill the room with his wide smile and friendly hello was secondary.

“Um. We were looking for a place to stay.”

Right on queue Jemma yawned where she was standing just behind him. 

“Sorry man. Hope doesn’t have any hotels. Give me a second though. Might be able to help.” He disappeared before they could say anything.

“Hope?” Skye muttered

“I’dunno.” He muttered back. Exhaustion clouding his brain. “The name of the town?” He yawned.

“Come’on.” The smiling man reappeared. Waving at them to join him on the second floor.

Trudging up those stairs felt like the longest journey Clint had ever had to make. The man led them further into the building, down a dark corridor into a half-full dorm, six sets of bunk beds crowding the space, three on each side hard up against the bare cement block walls.

“The boss says you can camp here for the night. Bathroom across the hall. We only have one. Sorry.” He said to Skye and Jemma. “But no one is in there. There’s food in the fridge, anything without a label is up for grabs.” He threw a couple of blankets on three of the beds at the far end of the room along with a couple of pillows. “I’ll be in the lounge if you need anything. Duerma bien.”


	21. Chapter 21

Clean, warm and as caught up on sleep as he was likely to get in an unfamiliar place when he had people to protect, Clint stretched in the top bunk he had claimed as his for the night. There weren’t any windows in the dorm, but all of the men who had been snoring when they arrived were gone, Jemma and Skye the only other people still in the room.

Slipping silently from between his sheets, he ghosted out of the room. The moment he was out the door, he could hear a shush of noise from the other end of the corridor. There weren’t any shadows to hide in, so he didn’t try and creep. Instead he paused just before anyone in the next room would be able to see him.

None of the multiple conversations were about him or the girls, nothing on where they had come from or where they might be going. That wasn’t to say they wouldn’t just come right out and ask him when he appeared.

“Mornin’.” A Texan drawl gave him away.

Stepping into the room, he met the eye of the man who had spoken.

“Good Moring.”

“There’s food if you want it.” The man from the night before offered from his position at the stove, waving at heaping plates of eggs, bacon and grits. “You’re girls joining us? Need anything?” 

“They’re still asleep thanks. A phone would be great. Cell died.” He lied.

“Sure. Sure. Bossman’s office is through there. You can use the deskphone in there.” He offered.

“Are you sure?” He didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.

By this point the whole room had stopped and was watching them.

“Sure as the sun rises in the East.” A large man said from the head of the long table all of the men were sitting at. It was the same Texan accent from earlier.

It wasn’t as reassuring as he probably intended. Clint had spent the last year or more living on a planet where the sun had risen in the west. Although they hadn’t called it West, it had been Ztor. 

“Thanks.” Choosing to take it as intended instead of picking at it, he headed for the office. Closing the door behind him, he lent against the cool wood and stared at the old rotary phone. He could see the heft it would have when he picked up the receiver, looking at something so solid finally forced the realisation that they were actually home into his head. Into his soul.

Taking the two steps across the space he picked up the phone and dialed a number every Shield agent knew by heart. It was a line that was always open and the number would never change. Any agent, active or not, could use it. The expected three rings echoed through the old receiver, and then a fourth and a fifth. Dead air of a dropped line stole his breath after twelve rings.

He didn’t. What? That line was always there. It was a promise made to those signing their lives away with an agency that precious few people knew about. A guarantee of safety that none of them would ever dream of giving away. Codes into computer systems and physical locations sure, but the phone number that torturers didn’t even know to ask about?

That wasn’t right. Something was very very wrong.

Staring at the phone for a long time, he finally decided on one other number he could ring. It was probably the nuclear option, but what else could he do?

It was a number he had called before. Many a time. A few years and a death ago, he would have called the woman who answered family. Now, he guessed she was his ex-mother-in-law. Also technically his ex-boss.

“Carter Resident.” A voice much younger than the one he was expecting answered.

“Hi. I um. Was looking for Peggy?” He stumbled, another unexpected change.

“Clint? Holy shit, is that really you?” The voice gasped and the owner’s identity swam into focus. Sharon. Phil’s much younger cousin. He had helped train her when she joined the family business, as she had once liked to joke.

Phil had changed his name when he joined, unwilling to be painted with the expectation of living up to his famous mother. Sharon, recognising the handy-cap she was already working with as a very young woman, had embraced the family legacy in a way that had always made Phil uncomfortable.

“Yeah, it’s me Sharon. Is Peggy there?”

“Im sorry Clint, she got put into a home about twelve years ago. Can I help with anything?” She truely did sound sorry.

A year. He hadn’t even known she was struggling. How long had they been gone? He wanted to ask, what was the date? What else had he missed? 

“I could do with a lift if you know anyone in the New Mexico area?” The questions had to wait until he had a way out of Hope New Mexico for Skye, Jemma and himself.

For the first time in the conversation, a smile crept into Sharon’s voice. “I just might be able to help you out. Where in New Mexico?”

“The firestation in a tiny town called Hope.” It sounded like the start of a bad romcom, maybe a Hallmark movie.

“See you soon.” She hung up on him.

Slipping back out into the mainroom, he thanked the Texan who seemed to be in charge and collected a plate of food. While he had been on the phone, Jemma had appeared and fallen into conversation with one of the firemen, Felicette, a dark shadow on her lap barely visible under the table. Clint took the seat next to the Texan.

“Clint.” He held out his hand in the almost forgotten gesture.

“Jack.” A large, work roughened hand engulfed his. “What brings you and your friends to our little town?” It wasn’t asked in suspicion, only friendly curiosity.

“Just passing through really. On our way home and the car gave it.” He shrugged helplessly. “I’ve called a friend for a hand. Should be out of your hair soon.”

“Not got much hair to be in.” Jack’s laugh was big, filling the room.

So far Hope had been a kind return to their home.

Skye shuffled into the room before either of them could say anything else.

“Morn’ng.” She yawned. Her eyes were only open enough for her to not bump into anything. Felicette jumped from Jemma’s lap and herded her person the rest of the way across the room directly to the coffee pot. Mug in hand, she bent to scoop the cat into the crook of one elbow and dropped into the seat opposite Clint. “You call Nick?” She finally asked after draining half her mug, a little more awake.

He wanted to lie, tell her he had got through, but couldn’t. Not after everything. “Didn’t get through, but Sharon is sending someone.” 

She shot him a sharp look, a silent demand that he explain that shit the second they weren’t surrounded by civilians. “Cool.” Draining the rest of her cup, she got up again.

“Sorry.” He felt the need to apologise for her apparent rudeness. “It takes her about a gallon of high octane coffee to wake up.” That might have been true once upon a time, but the detox of how ever long in space had broken her of the habit. He wasn’t completely sure what her sureliness was about, but didn’t want to offend their hosts until help actually arrived.

Jack laughed, a full bodied sound that echoes long after he had finished laughing. You couldn’t hear it and not at least smile along.

“My daughter is exactly the same. Chloe can’t even open her eyes in the morning without a carafe of the stuff.”

The two men fell into easy conversation, the morning and a full pot of coffee was eaten up with good conversation.

= + =

The deep rumble of an engine pulling into the open driveway interrupted a spirited discussion of Football versus Hockey. Clint was doing his best to avoid talk of teams and their current year, that would go badly for him very quickly.

Two doors opened and then slammed shut, whoever had arrived wasn’t making any effort to be covert. Skye and Jemma excused themselves and hurried across to the balcony.

“Clint? I think this is our ride.” Wonder filled Jemma’s voice.

“Sorry Jack.”

“Right you are.” 

Pulling up beside the others, he couldn’t believe his eyes. How had Sharon gotten Pepper fucking Pot to turn up in nowhere New Mexico to pick his sorry ass up?

“Clint Barton?” Ms Potts asked, an elegant hand lifted to shade her eyes from the bright desert sun to see into the shadowed interior.

“That’s me.” Clint lifted a hand.

“Pepper Potts.” She introduced herself needlessly.

“No shit.” Skye muttered thinking the same thing as Clint, but unable to keep that little voice inside.

“Skye.” He elbowed her lightly. “Be polite.” The rest of the balcony railing had filled with the bored firefighters. To try and even the odds for the business woman and the hulking man standing silently at her shoulder, a bodyguard or driver, Clint slipped out of the small crowd and down to the lower level. It also meant they weren’t shouting their business for all to hear. “Thank you for coming.” He said when he reached the ground floor.

The moment had come, the final step to going home. Getting in that car would send him on an inescapable collision course with Coulson and Rogers and seeing their happiness firsthand. THey had had years to fall in love and shack-up.

He couldn’t do it. His heart and lungs were clenching just at the thought. He would send Skye and Jemma home with Pepper and then call Sharon back and ask her to overnight him an id, get him started on a new life. Might even stay here, in Hope. A quiet life as a firefighter or the town recluse sounded pretty appealing actually.

“Skye and Jemma will be with you in a second.” Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen them slip away, going to collect their bags and round up Felicette from wherever she had disappeared to. 

“Just them?” She didn’t ask who they were, either she already knew or was smart enough not to ask right that second. He gave it 50:50 odds for either. Everything he had heard about her had painted her as an extremely intelligent woman. Everything he had heard from Phil.

“Yes.”

“Not a chance.” She smiled benignly at him. “You are getting on my plane and coming to New York with us. If you try and resist Happy will bundle you up and you can spent the flight very uncomfortably.” At no point did her expression change to reflect the fact she was threatening him.

Her vehemence on the subject was the last thing he expected. Who was he to her that she would care so much. God, care enough to go out of her way to pick him up. Nothing about his morning had made sense though, so what was one more thing?

Meeting her eye, he knew to the core of his bones that she was deadly serious.

“Let me grab my things.” He pasted his fake showman’s smile on and turn his back on one of the most powerful women, people, on the planet.

Hopping up the stairs he strode to the bedroom, Skye and Jemma had gathered his bags onto the bed he had used the night before, packed and ready to go. He wanted to be angry at them, but also knew they had no idea he had been thinking about staying behind.

Slinging them over a shoulder, he went to say thanks and see ya to the firemen.

= + =

The plush interior of the jet looked too clean and expensive for Clint to be comfortable touching any of it. Even his dusty boots on the cream wool carpet made him edgy. He would just stand in the entrance way for the whole flight. That was totally safe!

“Mr Barton, please come and sit.” Pepper invited him further into the luxury craft.

“I’m okay…” He shifted his weight from foot to foot.

Skye crossed the small space, “It’s the fancinest of it isn’t it?” Her eyes were understanding. “Boots off.” She ordered louder and was bustling away again. Opening a throw blanket over one of the plush armchair-like seats she crossed her arms and waited for him to obey.

It was enough. Stepping out of his perpetually unlaced, scuffed combat boots, he minced across the carpet and carefully lowered himself into the seat Skye had prepared for him. The second he had formed a lap, Felicette jumped into him and curled up for a nap.

Smiling wainly at them, he shut his own eyes and fained sleep. He could just hear them rustling around the cabin getting ready for take-off. The rumble of the engines sparking to life beneath and around him told him more about their progress than the noise the women were making.

The flight was longer than he wanted and much too short. The crackle of the PA announcing their approach to Teterboro Airport. Clint blinked himself ‘awake’. Stretching before settling again, he avoided Skye’s suspicious eyes as he clicked himself into the seat.

“There will be a car waiting to take you anywhere you want.” Pepper was talking to Skye and Jemma. “Mr Barton can ride with me to the tower.” It wasn’t an offer.

As much as he didn’t want to go to the tower, there were too many disturbing questions about the unanswered phonecall that morning to make him comfortable sending the other two out on their own.

“I’m staying with Clint.” Skye said before he could.

Jemma was nodding. He wasn’t sure if she knew that he couldn’t get to Fury, but she would stick with Skye until they figured themselves out.

“Of course.” Pepper aquiesced easily.

On the tarmac, the five of them, the bodyguard/driver had reappeared when the land crew were putting the stairs in place, and hurried through a chilly drizzle to the waiting cars. They were large black SUVs with windows tinted so dark, there was no chance of anyone seeing inside. Clint knew they were packed with bulletproof armour or some shit from how low and heavy they were sitting. It wasn’t as confidence inspiring as they probably were meant to be.

He got in anyway.

After so long away, it was surreal driving through the city that had been his home for so long, even if he spent more time running around the world than in the city that never sleeps. The last time he had been here, the wounds of the Battle of New York were just starting to scab over, the debris cleaned away and the first lines of scaffolding growing around the damage, giant sutures on wounds that would never truely go away. Those scabs were gone now, the scars starting to fade from new, bright pink to silver. 

Manhattan was both the worst and the best. Driving past one street he knew if he asked the driver to turn and go down three blocks, he would be at the apartment building where he and Phil had shared an apartment. Off the books, not even Nat had known where it was. Shield had thought Phil lived in Hell’s Kitchen, and Clint even further away in Brooklyn. No one at the agency would have ever imagined that Clint ‘Hawkeye’ Barton would be so domesticated to live in a doorman building in Midtown overlooking Bryant Park. 

Their destination wasn’t that far. The knife sharp point of Stark Tower rose above everything around it. Instead of stopping outside the monolith to Stark’s ego, the small convoy pulled around the side and into the cool depths of an underground carpark. Spiraling down several levels and past a secure gate, they finally pulled into a set of parking spaces sign posted as belonging to Potts. V.

The three returned travellers were the first out of the vehicles, bags slung over shoulders and Felicette draped over Skye’s neck like a 1930’s stole. Pepper was slower getting herself together, gathering bags and passing folders of paperwork to the guard/drive. She led the way deeper into the building, an Empress with her entourage. The carpark ended at a double metal door. An elevator that opened almost the second Pepper placed her hand on a part of the wall that had looked exactly the same as every other part of the wall, even to Clint and his legendary eyesight.

The inside of the metal box was as lush as the plane had been. If this was the opulence that Potts was used to being surrounded by, it was no wonder she had been confused by Clint’s unease.

Tension thickened the air, rising a magnitude for every floor they passed until Clint could barely breathe. Fear and anxiety clawed their way up his throat and into his mouth, stealing his words and stoppering his lungs. The doors opened without even the pneumatic hiss Clint was used to in almost every other building he had frequented on Earth that used elevators. 

Anemic evening light struggled to fill the large space laying in wait outside the crowded metal box. Pepper strode out purposefully, disappearing quickly behind a dividing wall that a golden light was spilling from. The clash of metal suggested it was the kitchen. THe open space in front of them was a lounge, plush leather sectionals spread across the space with small tables next to the seats. Stepping tentatively into the space, Clint could see the wall the elevator was set in had inbuilt bookcases running from his left and the bar he remembered from his one and only visit to Stark Tower to his right. It was the only landmark that hadn’t changed. Or was it, taking another mincing step, he could see the large hole the Hulk had left with Loki had been filled in with clear material to make a walking surface while preserving the massive damage.

How could anyone live with a constant reminder of that horrible day in their home? Especially with what Stark had undergone, almost dying in the depths of space. 

“You get used to it.” A soft voice said from a shadowed doorway. Stepping into the light, Bruce Banner’s smiling face met his eye. “Hello Agent Barton, I hadn’t realised you were joining us today.”

“Us?”

“Barton.” A more familiar growl followed Banner into the room.

“Fury! What the fuck? I called the help-line and got no answer!” Clint wanted to stalk across the room, grab the overly dramatic leather lapels and shake the other man until all of his secrets cae tumbling out. The warm presence of Skye and JEmma just behind him was the only thing that kept him in his place.

“Director Fury Sir!” Jemma didn’t feel Clint’s protectiveness.

The solid thump og her bags meetings the marble floors was the bass to the percussion of her shoes slapping against the floor. Running she threw herself into the man’s arms. It was ridiculous, the large black man dwarfed the diminutive Brit. It was also the most touchy feely Clint had ever seen Fury and Phil had been the man’s best friend. Probably still was.

“What. The Actual. Fuck?” Skye breathed ticking the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Holy shit! Dread Pirate Fury is going to kill my new friend before I get to play with her. Save her Brucie!” Stark’s sarcastic voice filled the space unlike anything else. Bouncing off the walls and glass.

The short engineer had appeared, with Pepper at his side slightly less put together than she had been two minutes ago, from the kitchen. The Superhero Billionaire had one arm wrapped around his CEO and a martini in the other hand.

“How’s it going Tweety?” He nodded at Clint. “Good to finally have you with us.”

“Us?” He asked again, not really expecting a result from the other man who had already wandered off, his eyes still staring relentlessly at Jemma and Fury. Clint could understand why, it was an odd sight to begin with and the longer it went on, the weirder it got.

There was more movement through the door Fury and Banner had appeared through, the setting sun letting Clint see into the shadows better. A flash of red hair was his only warning before a warm weight lent into his side. THe support of his sister. The platonic love of his life. She would never hug him, not out in theopen like that, but she would always been the solid pillar of strength holding him up when he couldn’t hold himself anymore.

“Dobro pozhalvat’ domoy, malen’kiy yastreb. Ya skuchal po tebe.” She said under her breath, low enough that noone could hear her.

THe blonde hair of a walking greek god slipped into the room when Clint’s attention was split, focusing mainly on the woman by his side. He almost flinched when he looked up to meet the sharply intellogent eyes of his one time team leader, the legendary Captain Steve ‘America’ Rogers.

The kind and slightly too knowing smile with a hint of sadness underneath wasn’t the expression he expected to be greeted with by his husbands new whatever. Smug superiority would have been the name of the expression he exprextsd to be greeted by if asked. In the uncertainty of the Captain’s entrance, Clint almost missed the man hiding in Rogers’ shadow. Long dark hair hid most of his face. The sharp jaw and cold blue eyes rung a bell deep in Clint’s memory, but he couldn’t place the man. Their eyes met, the other man looked away first, his eyes skittering over Clint and Skye behind his shoulder, before looking at Fury and Jemma who had finally let each other go but were talking quietly but intensely to each other.

A presence in the doorway the other’s had appeared through drew Clint’s attention like a moth to a flame. Phil had always had that effect on Clint. For so long, he had been the centre of Clint’s universe, the sun to Clint’s shadowed moon. A constance, pulling presence that he always succumb to even though it would burn him out of existance. 

“Agent Coulson.” Some well of strength that had always been there but just out of reach except in the most dire of circumstances welled up inside him. Standing straight and meeting his husband’s eye, he found he could be the picture of cool perfersionallist that he had thought would be beyond him in this moment.

“A.. Agent Barton…” It seemed Phil couldn’t do the same.

Looking closer, Clint could see new lines on a face he had known as well as the back of his hand, and a sadness in his eyes that shouldn’t be there. Both because Phil was better than to allow anything to show, and because it just shouldn’t have been there. He should be satisfied maybe, that the mess with a marriage hanging over his new relationship could be dealt with, or annoyed that his past mistake had come back to haunt him. Or even unconcerned either way. Sadness wasn’t okay. Phil should never be sad.

“Awkward!” Stark sung, injecting himself into the conversation before either of them could say anything. “Leave Agent Stick-in-the-mud alone, he’s sad and boring anyway, I’m more fun! Come on, your room is all ready. Where have you been anyway? Fury said you went on a mission and then were back and then gone again. Doing anything fun? Who are the ladies?”

Stark didn’t stop talking, but Clint tuned im out.

“Can we talk?” Phil asked, uncertainty running strong through his voice.

God, he even rocked back on to his heels and balanced their for a long second before moving to his toes, taking a breath and going backwards again. Forward, back, forwar, back. Clint had only seen him that nervous once and it wan’t a parallel he wanted to draw. Would the request for an end to his marriage arrive in the same way the request for its start had come?

“I’ll debrief with the Director when he is free. He was the one that sent me on the mission after all.” Clint intentionally misinterpreted the request.

“Come on Merida, with me.” Stark finally stopped talking, realising no one was listening to him. Wrapping a grease stained hand around the strap of Clint’s bag that was still on his shoulder, he started trying to pull the taller man back to the elevator they had barely left. “You too Mini Mystery Merida.” He waved Skye after them.

He knew he should have said good bye or something to Phil, but it had been a long fucking couple of days and he was ready for some quiet and being able to put a door between himself and the world.

“I’m not a Mini Merida. If anything, I’m a mini you.” Skye said the moment the elevator doors had closed.

Stark started sputtering. Clint started laughing. The release after the tension was muscle melting relief. The ride down wasn’t long, only five numbers. Stark started talking after the first.

“Top is me and Pep. Not open to the public.” It was the most serious Clint had ever heard him. “Then the common floor. Where we were. Gym. Library. Two apartments per floor. Rogers and Barnes. Brucy and Itty Bitty Spider. And then you and Agent Cyborg share this floor. Sparky and Not so Head Honcho are next down. Then it’s Labs, SI, and then other people, I dunno shops and shit on the last half dozen floors. I think another library? I’ve lost track.” He walked out of the elevator still talking. A long corridor ended in a thin slice of the New York Skyline, the Empire State Building perfectly framed. A single door on either side were the only other features on the floor.

“That side is Agent Agent.” Stark waved to the right. “This is you. It was mean to be him, but he said something about you liking sunrise better than sunset and insisted I swap them so I hope he wasn’t fucking with me, becuase seriously who has a favourite sun movement? ANd who knows that shit?”

“I like Sunset better.” Skye piped in.

Stark jumped and shut up, staring at her as if he had forgotten she was there.

“Umm. Okay.” He finally opened the door leading them into a wide, mostly unadorned space.

Neutral colours and minimal furniture filled the space. A blank canvas waiting for a man Stark barely knew. Without waiting, Skye darted past Stark and disappeared down one of the two corridors leading off the large space. She reappeared quickly and went to investigate the other corridor.

“Mreow?” It wasn’t one of Felicette’s vocalisations. An orange tabby was winding its way around his ankled before striding into the room. A black shadow appeared from the direction Skye had gone, Felicette coming to see who had come into her space.

“Mew. Meow!” The two cats started rubbing up against each other .

“Freaky.” Stark said, watching them. Shaking himself he looked at Clint. “Fury’s cat Goose. Watch out for that one. Anyway. Dinner is on the common floor at seven, or there is food in the kitchen here. Do whatever.”

And then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome home little hawk. I missed you.


	22. Chapter 22

Clint didn’t go upstairs for dinner. Skye stayed with him and Jemma slipped into the room just as they were serving the spaghetti into three large bowls. It wasn’t fancy but it was something they had tried to make an alien version of without success and had missed.

Sitting at the small round table that sat in the window at the end of the kitchen, it was a quiet meal. None of them up for much conversation. Food eaten and meal prep cleaned away, they crowded together on the couch with mugs of their preferred hot beverage in hand and a couple of the blankets they had brought back with them over their laps.

“So.” Skye started before stopping again.

“Yep.” Clint agreed.

“He wasn’t what I was expecting. Coulson I mean. Older, less hair.” She shrugged at him. “Sad eyes.” She added as an after thought.

“Hmm. Definitely older than the laat, and only time, I saw him. But then again, so are we.” Jemma murmured but was mumbling almost absent mindedly by the end.

Something had been on her mind since she arrived. “What’s up buttercup?” Clint knocked their shoulders together, trying to jarr some words out of her.

“Shield’s gone.” The words were flat.

“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Skye found her voice first.

Clint’s brain had frozen, it was too much. Everything was just too much. Getting home. Seeing Phil again. And now this, he might not have been certain that he was going to go back to Shield, but it had been there as an option. Without saying anything, he got up and walked out. Getting into the elevator he looked for a button or something to get him moving, but it was a featureless box. Expensive wood and shiny metal, but no control panel.

It started moving anyway, the lurch in his stomach telling him he was going down. Those few seconds shorter than would have taken him back to the garage, it opened on the marble foyer he remembered from that night. He walked through it as quickly as he could, keeping his eyes on the too shiny floor. Out the door and breathing in the familiar scent of the city he called home was like someone had released the vice around his heart and lungs.

He could be just another person in a crowd of people. Not paying attention to where he was going, he wandered. The sunset and the city slipped into the neon gloom that passed for night. Automatically he found himself pushing open a door he hadn’t realised he had stopped at. The tinkle of a bell and the hard white lights pulled him out of his head.

He knew this diner. Better than he knew almost anywhere in New York, except the apartment he had shared with Phil and Shield HQ. Tempe’s Temperamental Taste Buds had been a regular haunt for Clint and Phil when they were home. Clint could cook, and enjoyed it, but when they didn’t know when they would be called away on a mission for six weeks and come home to a fridge that had just about reached sentience, he hadn’t often bothered. And while Phil had  _ Opinions _ about proper diet, he could barely boil water.

“Clinton! Where have you been?” Temperance threw herself out of the kitchen the moment she noticed him lurking in the door.

Sweeping him into a tight embrace, he relaxed that last little bit. This was home, the scent of fresh bread and thick cheese sauce. The place looked like a slightly dilapidated 1960s diner, but the food could compete with whatever the Italian equivalent of Nobu was.

Dragging him to what had been  _ their  _ table, she pushed him into his seat and took what had once been Phil’s.

“Julia! Two black coffees and some of the tiramisu.” She called to one of her staff. “So? Where have you been? We’ve all been worried sick. That boy of yours worried himself almost to death, he’s been getting better, but still.” SHe turned her sharp attention back to him.

He cursed himself for surrounding himself with intelligent women who gave enough of a shit about him to notice things.

“What happened?” Her voice was softer this time, less demanding, noticing his flinch at the mention of ‘his boy’. It was an ironic name, Phil was older than both of them, but she was of the opinion that anyone who couldn’t cook well enough to get by was a child.

He shrugged and shook his head at the same time. How could he explain that he had seen his husband kissing another man after thinking he was dead for half a year, running away to Antarctica and being sent to the other side of the univeris. And now, that he was finally back, he was starting to think that the worse case scenario he had been dwelling on for years had never actually come about and he had got the completely wrong end of the stick?

“I thought he cheated on me, so I took a job overseas and it went bad.” That was pretty much the same thing right?

“Aw, sweets. I’m so sorry.” Her sad smile said she meant it, it wasn’t just spouting the words society expected her to. “I hope it works out for you, in whatever way makes  _ you _ happy. And we can start with coffee and chocolate!”

Julia arrived with the demanded drinks and desert, dropping them off in the drive by service that had made the diner the favourite with the two spies who didn’t want wait-staff hovering.

“Aw, money, no.” He signed. “Tempe, I just got back. I don’t have my wallet on me.” He was good for it, or he had been and if he wasn’t any longer he would just demand Fury paid his tab to make up for whatever legal finangling meant he wasn’t good for it any more.

“My treat.”

He knew nothing he said would change her mind, and dug into the soft chocolatey coffee goodness. He moaned around the first mouthful, having almost forgotten what chocolate tasted like.

Tempe just laughed and waved Julia back to order him another.

Sitting back, Clint cupped the almost empty mug and laughed. Tempe’s attempted to impersonate an interaction between the Good Captain and Tucker Carlson a month or two back. It was terrible!

He didn’t look up when the bell above the door rung. There had been a steady in and out of f people for the last few hours and another one shouldn’t have made any difference. Noone knew where he had gone, or his connection to this place. Noone except the one person he didn’t want to face.

“Clint?” It was a tone he had never heard from Phil before. Sad and desperate. Almost begging.

“I’ll just…” Tempe thumbed towards the kitchen and slipped out of the chair, leaving them alone.

Phil didn’t immediately sit, instead waiting for Clint to give permission. He didn’t for a long moment, noting every change, every flicker of expression that Phil couldn’t hide. Finally he nodded. Julia dropped a full mug in front of Phil and topped Clint’s up when he held it out. She hovered in a way that went against all of the procedures the Taste Bud had in place.

“We’re okay.” Clint murmured to her.

They sat in silence as they waited for their drinks too cool, Clint watched the people moving past the window, their shapes obscured in a growing sheet of rain. It suited his maudlin move perfectly.

“I’ve played this conversation out in my head a million times. Not anyway I worded it sounded right, or said what I wanted. I’m sorry, it’s a nothing statement really and can barely touch the hurt I caused, but I am so very sorry. And I have excuses, explanations. And none of them are enough, or make it okay. I didn’t remember Clint. Barely anything. Loki killed me, or close enough. Fury did something, something horrendous to bring me back.” Horror and remembered pain tightened his eyes and shoulders, hunching him over his mug. “They played with my brain.” His voice cracked. “They played with my memories and removed you. Noot Hawkeye, I knew we had worked together, but they removed you Clint Barton my husband, the love of my life.” 

Clint watched him as he talked. Not sure what to say. He thought it might have been the most honest conversation they had ever had. Maybe with the exception of the awkward conversation just after they got engaged about Phil’s family.

“That. That night.” Phil had to stop and clear his voice. Trying to blink back the tears that were gathering in his eyes. “Sorry. I just need to get this right, and I’m so tired.”

Concern twinged in the centre of Clint’s heart. Over the time away, he had tried to harden his heart against this moment. Tried to dig the neverending tendrils of this man that had grown through his soul. He had thought he had been successful, he had thought he was free of the hold Phil Coulson had on him. It was a rude shock to find out how wrong he was.

“That night,” His voice was stronger, more like The Agent Coulson. “It was the first date. Captain Rogers had asked me out once before, and I had said no initially, but when he asked again I said yes. I was sad and missing someone, it was you but I didn’t know that. The, uh, the kiss. There was only one Clint! I swear. There aren’t words for what happened. We were kissing and then suddenly it was like my head was splitting open. Ten years of memories and feelings being shoved into my mind. I, um passed out. “ He was actually blushing, red staining his cheeks.

“What do you want me to say Phil?” Clint asked. Truely asked. He didn’t know what Phil was hoping to get out of his confession.

Phil shrugged at him. “I don’t know. Nothing. I just needed you to know, I didn’t mean to cheat on you, I didn’t know I was cheating. I… There is no excuse. Thank you for listening.”

Clint nodded, not meeting Phil’s eye. “I have… Bye.” He got up and walked away. From his heart.

= + =

“I’m fucked!” Clint declared as he shoved through the apartment door. 

“If it’s not on it’s not on.” Skye called back from her nest of blankets on the couch.

To Clint, it looked like she hadn’t move since he left. Also, “What?”

“If it’s not on, it’s not on.” She repeated as if it should mean something. “Sorry. It’s the extent of the safe sex talk I had with the only foster family that bothered to have one. It became a running joke with my boyfriend at the time.”

“People need to stop saying sorry.” He grumbled.

“Sorry?” She grinned evilly at him. Flipping up one of the blankets she offered him a seat. “What happened?”

“Phil.”

“Ah. Do you want to talk about it? Do you want to get drunk? Or do you want to eat icecream, watch a romcom and cry? There are apparently three years of them to catch up on.”

“Three years?” He hadn’t actually known how long they had been gone.

“Apparently, three years and five months to be exact. It’s June.”

“How is it summer? It’s freezing.”

“Cold snap?” She asked. “But I see you have chosen denial and deflection.” 

They spent the night watching every crappy movie they had missed. The sun rose as the credits began rolling on one of the films.

“...I swear it’s true! The main actress looks exactly like Darcy Lewis ‘Thors Lightening Sister’.” Clint swiped a finger across his heart in a cross.

“Maybe they’re sisters?” Skye suggested.

“Nah, only kid. Shield does background checks.” He reminded her.

“Then maybe it was her? Like actually Darcy going by a pseudonym.” She struggled to get the last word out, a yawn wide enough to almost dislocate her jaw.

“Go to sleep. You don’t have to keep me company.” She was already asleep when he looked at her.

Tucking the blankets in around her he slipped out. He should be exhausted. He had been awake for, he wasn’t even sure. Two days maybe three. He was too tired to remember the last time he slept.

He still hadn’t figured out how the elevator knew where he wanted to go, but just like the day before it took him to the foyer and he was able to get out in the thin trickle of early starters. His choice of direction was completely intentional. He knew where he wanted to go that morning. The anchor stone of Shield, the New York HQ.

It wasn’t a long walk from Stark Tower. The tall office building he was expecting to find, even if it wasn’t bustling with the never ending task of Global Security, was gone. He still didn’t know the story, it was one too many things to deal with. Construction fencing surrounded the site, heshan over the wire stopping the uninterested businesspeople striding by from looking in.

“Do you have me bugged?” Clint asked as he stood at a tear in the fabric staring into the giant hole in the ground, rubble littering the bottom.

“No.” The I just know you went unsaid.

Unkindly, Clint’s mind added  _ now.  _ His mouth got in on the snarky unkindness before he could stop himself. “And you don’t think I deserve a chance to process everything that has happened? I didn’t even know we had been gone for more than three years. And what happened to Shield? For fuck sake Phil, the world has literally changed and I barely know which way is up and I need some fucking time,” He was shouting, all the bullshit of years of shoving it down to help Jemma and Skye keep going was pouring out of him. “If that’s okay with you?” He sneered cruelly.

The vitriol pouring out of him forced Phil back a step, so twisted up in emotions he couldn’t parse and losing it as exhaustion stripped the last of his control. A tiny voice said he would regret it later, but he couldn’t stop the words.

“Of course. I’ll leave you be.” Phil took another step back, and another.

Clint let him go.

From the remnants of Shield, he stumbled home. Not the tower, but his apartment building. The doorman greeted him as if he had been there the day before instead of four years ago, and happily got the spare key when he asked.

“Thanks Freddy.”

“No problem Clint. Get some sleep man.”

He waved at the man over his shoulder without looking back. He had always liked Freddy, he felt like he had more incommon with him than with his neighbors. 

The apartment was exactly the same. A thin layer of dust was over everything, but that wasn’t particularly unusual either. Months sometimes went by without either of them stepping foot in their home but both of them were too paranoid to let a stranger clear for them. Wandering through the space, he let his fingers drift through the dust on the bookshelf until they snagged on the only photo they had on display of the two of them together. It was their wedding day, Peggy had come up from New York to be their witness at the courthouse. Just the three of them. They had gone out to lunch after, and then they had driven Peggy back to DC and gone on to a tiny cabin in the Blackwater Wildlife Reserve for a three day honeymoon. It had been dreamlike. They both wanted longer, but couldn’t swing it without telling Shield why two of their top agents wanted time off at the same time.

Two men smiled brilliantly at each other on litter strewn steps. It started raining, hard, about two seconds after Peggy had taken that photo. There weren’t any photos of either of their families on display, Phil for security reasons, and Clint because he didn’t have any. Not that he would want them if he did.

With the photo in hand, he stumbled into the bedroom and dropped onto the bed. He was asleep so fast he didn’t notice the puff of dust his landing blew up around him.

= + =

It was dawn when he woke, sneezing from the dust he had disturbed as he twitched and kicked in his sleep. Even having gotten almost twenty-four hours sleep, he still felt exhaustion lingering in his joints. He wasn’t bouncing back as quick as he used to. Shuffling through the apartment, he started a pot of coffee and went to take a shower while it brewed.

Mug in one hand, and damp dust cloth in the other, he wandered around swiping at the dust. After his coffee was finished, he figured if he had dusted he might as well vacuum and then why not put a load of laundry on. Waiting for it to finish he took a nap on the couch, waking late enough that he could justify ordering an early dinner of pizza, the stash of cash in the kitchen drawer was still there to pay the delivery guy.

While he was waiting, he moved the washing into the dryer and wandered across to the bookcase full of DVDs. A packet tucked in between Mr and Mrs Smith the 1940s version and Mr and Mrs Smith the Brad Pitt version caught his eye. Tugging it out, he rummaged through the large envelope and pulled out a stack of documents and cards. His face was on all of the cards and one of his handful of common alias’ on the paperwork. There were even some with his actual name. It was everything he needed to continue his life. Id and bank cards, social security numbers and insurance policies.

Taking the paperwork back to the couch he read through it all carefully. A pile of bank statements were at the bottom. They were for the account Shield used to put Clint’s salary into. Flipping through them, Clint could see they continued to pay him until just over a year ago when it abruptly stopped. He wasn’t sure if that was when whatever happened to Shield happened, or it was something else. He thought it was the former, if someone was keeping his paperwork up to date they must have thought he would turn up again at some point.

The intercom buzzed.

“Hello?”

“Mr Barton? There is a delivery from Grant’s Pizzaria?” Freddy said his voice crackling across the aging line.

“Send it up.” He wondered if Jose was still their weekday delivery person? Probably not, he had only been a semester from finishing his business degree at Brooklyn Community College. He should have moved up to bigger and better things by now.

The doorbell rang, pulling him from thoughts about someone he would probably never see again.

“Thanks. Here….Hi.” He stood awkwardly holding out the two twenty dollar notes.

“Hey! You gonna invite me in?” Skye asked, holding the two pizza boxes out of reach until he stepped out of the doorway. “Thanks!” She chirped, ducking around him.

Dropping the boxes on the counter, he could hear her banging through the cupboards, looking for the crockery.

“One in from the fridge on the top.” He called, otherwise leaving her to it. There wasn’t actually all that much trouble she could get into.

She reappeared in due course, a plate in each hand, one obviously him sized. She handed his dinner over and dropped onto the couch beside him, flicking her feet on his coffee table. He should tell her to put them down. Phil would be glaring a hole through her feet at this point. He stayed silent.

Clint could feel her trying to build her way up to something. Fiddling with the crust of her last piece of pizza, her eyes were darting around room, not settling on anything for long.

Keeping his voice even, he asked “What’s up?”

“Stark offered Jemma a job. Or Banner did. Whatever. She’s going to take it.”

“And you’re feeling lost?” He finished.

She nodded. “Were you serious?”

“I try not to be.” He snarked, grinning falsely.

“Clint.” Hurt and censure mixed evenly.

“Sorry.” He mumbled, stuffing a huge bite of pizza into his mouth to stop anymore idiotic things from slipping out.

“The going into business together? The security thing? I have some money, apparently Shield kept paying me after we went planet hopping, and I wasn’t exactly a big spender before that.” Building up a head of steam, she just kept going.

He just about strained something chewing the too full mouthful and swallowing. Ow. “Yes.”

They grinned at each other stupidly.


	23. Chapter 23

= One year later =

“CLINT!!” Skye yelled, the hand over the receiver doing little to muffle her voice. “Phone!” She handed it to him with a slightly evil grin, it was the farthest thing from reassuring as he could imagine. Had accepting the phone been the smart thing? He really didn’t think it had.

“Mr Barton speaking.” He cringed every time he said it, but Skye with her font of business acumen insisted he used the more formal name. She then also argued she couldn’t possibly do the same as she didn’t have a last name. Brat.

“Clint?” Phil’s voice carried down the line.

“Oh, hey. What’s up?” He took the phone into his little office. It wasn’t much but it was his.

Skye and he had converted the abandoned office front that was part of one of his safe houses in Brooklyn into Xandar Security, cyber and physical security consultants. A few clients had asked after the interesting name, and they had just grinned and came up with ever more ridiculous answers. The most recent had been that it had come to Skye during a ‘spiritual experience’ in the Bolivian rainforest.

“Are we still on for tonight?” Phil asked.

To anyone else he would have sounded supremely neutral, unconcerned with the question and whatever answer he got. Clint knew different, he could hear the twinge of nerves.

“Yeah, we’re still on. I’ll see you at six.”

They didn’t linger on the phone, they would be seeing each other in a few hours anyway.

Ducking out of his office and into Skye’s he lobbed the phone back at her. Her indignant yell followed him out of the room. He enjoyed working with her, and being his own boss. They had opened quietly just over nine months ago and after a few false starts, he taken off. The stability of it all was a nice change, he knew that aside from the odd emergency he could clock in at 8.30 and out at 5. That if he really wanted to take a long weekend and go fishing he could, although he hadn’t felt the need yet and didn’t think he ever would. Maybe camping. The point was, there wasn’t much yelling or people shooting at him.

He missed working with Tasha and Skye sometimes still turned around to ask Jemma something just to find the other woman wasn’t there. But it was good. He was still in his and Phil’s apartment. Skye wasn’t crashing on his couch anymore, having taken over the appartment over the office. She had started seeing a really nice social worker called Daniel. She was happy, and he was happy for her.

His own life hadn’t shaken out quite as neatly. He knew he should have moved out. Found a place that was just his. But he couldn’t give up the last thread to his old life. Everything else was gone, and while he didn’t miss it all, only some of it, he could hold on to this. Shield was gone, and now knowing what had happened, he wasn’t convinced he was sorry. Phil was the sticking point. He hadn’t talked to the other man for months after that morning in front of HQ. A few emails to sort out the living arrangements had been the extent of the contact.

Then Skye had accepted a contract upgrading the security at Stark’s family home on Central Park and Phil had been the one waiting to let them in. Skye had known. She had known and not given him any warning. As the very mature adult he was, he had ignored her for a week and sulked. 

He had epic pouting abilities.

Things had gotten better since then. Thinking about it, he would say they were about where they had been when Clint had first joined Shield, weary but willing to give it ago. The feelings behind it were very different, but the result was the same. They could be professional, but skirted around anything deeper.

That would have to change though.

He distracted himself with work for the rest of the day. Finishing off the quote for Nelson and Murdoch he sent it off to the Law Firm. They weren’t big, in fact they would be their smallest client yet, but Skye knew Murdoch in a way she wouldn’t talk about, so they were doing it as a favour.

“You ready?” Skye stuck her head around the door. 

Tidying the last few things off his desk, he shrugged into his suit jacket and followed her out into the tiny meeting room that took up the back of the office.

Phil was already waiting, seated in one of the three chairs, although he stood when he saw them coming. Nervously, he fiddled with the button on his jacket as he buttoned it up.

“Good Evening.”

“Hey!” Skye bounced across the room and hugged the nervous man. After she had gotten over her bias against him, the anarchist hacker and buttoned up G-man had bonded almost instantly. Their poorly hidden nerdy sides a natural bridge for them.

He was glad. Really. He was, both of them needed more people in their corners. Particularly as Peggy continued to go downhill and Phil was facing losing his only remaining parent

“Skye.” He gently reminded her. It wasn’t often he was the one advocating for professionalism, but he needed to be the adult in this situation.

“Right, sorry.” She was blushing deep red when she stepped back to his side. “Um, please take a seat.”

Clint slid into one of the chairs, Skye beside him and Phil facing them. Flipping open his snazzy leather case, a ‘congratulations on your new business’ from Pepper who he had come to admire as a businessperson and like as a person, he skimmed the first page even though he already had the damned thing memorised. Phil’s CV was impressive. Especially as they got the unredacted version. The cover CV was impressive as well, but lacked the excitement of the real version.

“Welcome Mr Coulson. I am Clint Barton and this is Skye. We are the owners of Xandar Security. You are here for the opening of Physical Security Consultant. Tell me why you want this job?” It was almost word for word out of a How to Conduct a Job Interview website Clint had googled about half an hour ago.

= + =

“That went well!” Skye dumped her notepad and stack of pens on her desk, shouting across the office at him. “Right? It did go well didn’t it?” She returned to the small area between their offices. “I’ve never interviewed anyone before.” She sounded awed. “I’m gonna be someone’s boss.  _ Phil’s _ boss.” She grinned at him. “Right?”

“It’s not like there is much competition for the job.” In fact there had only been one other applicant and while her resume had been interesting, they had agreed Jessica Jones would be better on an as need, break into shit for us, basis. 

Darting in, she squeezed him tightly and then let him go. “Thanks! I know this isn’t easy for you, but it will be great. You’ll see.”

= + =

Phil’s first day as their first employee was a little bumpy. Clint had planned to be there early, be prepared with all the final paperwork and shit. Insurance, 401(K), all those good adult things being a good employer required.

Instead, he was almost an hour late. The washing machine had freaked out and started spewing water everywhere at two okay in the morning. After three hours grappling with the thing, he had given up and booked a plumber for that evening. By the time he had cleaned up and found something clean and dry to wear, he had missed his train by a mile. When he finally got on the subway, it had stopped in the tunnel to Brooklyn and they had been stuck there for forty-five minutes.

Running into work, he was sleep deprived, caffeine deprived, and annoyed. Phil patiently waiting for him on one of the uncomfortable visitor seats in his tiny office was the last thing he wanted to deal with.

The other man took one look at how Clint was dressed and the tense frown on his face, and got up and walked out. Clint blinked after him, offended and even more annoyed. What the fuck!

Dropping his bag onto his desk, he followed, ready to give Phil a piece of his mind. This wasn’t Shield. Phil wasn’t Clint’s boss or handler and if he couldn’t deal with Clint being his boss, he could fuck right off.

Pulling up short, he stared. Phil was scrabbling through the cupboards under the sink. Brandishing a mug triumphantly, he stuck it under the spout of the coffee pod machine. That thing was the devil and Clint hated it, preferring to go to the diner on the corner for his caffeine hit.

The thing worked perfectly, on the first go for Phil. He had always had a deft hand with anything that produced coffee.

“Oh. Here.” Phil held out the full mug when he turned and saw Clint standing there, staring at him. Clint kept staring at him. “You look like you need it.”

“Thanks.”

His second day was better. And his third better again.

By the close of the week, they had settled into an easy, efficient rhythm.

= Six months later = 

“Hey, um, Clint?” Phil stood in the doorway of Clint’s office on a random Thursday night. It had been a long week, with an even longer day to look forward to the next day. A massive project, their biggest so far, had gone haywire and Skye was away for the week with Daniel visiting his parents in Idaho, leaving the two men to sort it out.

Clint was finally packing up for the day, shoving papers and phone into his briefcase. Where had he put his keys that morning? Getting a glance at the clock, he amended that to  _ yesterday _ morning. He couldn’t contain the yawn that cracked his jaw.

“Clint?”

Clint blinked at Phil as if seeing him for the first time. He knew that tone, it suggested it wasn’t the first time he had called his name.

“Sorry, what?” Clint put his bag down to turn all of his attention to Phil, he didn’t have enough energy left to be splitting his focus.

“I. um… Never mind. Get some sleep.” Smiling thinly, Phil turned to leave, jacket and his own beat up briefcase in hand.

“Phil, wait.” Scooping up his things, and turning off the light, he hurried after Phil.

Walking out together, Phil waited patiently while Clint got through the intensive lock up procedure. Turning in sync towards the subway station, they were silent until they were standing on the platform waiting for the train.

“What were you going to ask? Back in the office.” Clint asked.

“Nothing important.” Phil waved a hand as if he could brush the topic off.

“I’ve known you for almost a decade. You aren’t going to get that line of bullshit past me.” Clint side-eyed him. It wasn’t like Phil to be so reticent when he wanted to say or ask something. “Just ask.”

“You never did anything about our marriage?”

Clint wasn’t sure if Phil had meant it to come out as a question but it did. Turning to face Phil, he catalogued the slight blush dusted high across Phil’s cheeks, and how he shifted his weight back and forward. An unconscious movement as he prepared to run.

“No.” Clint turned away again. Giving the other man time to sort out whatever was going on in his head.

“Why?” It was a simple question. Why? Why. Why. He didn’t know. It would be a lie if he said that. He did know. He just didn’t think Phil would ever ask or care. Or find out. That was stupid.

He shrugged.

“Clint. Why?” Phil placed a light hand on Clint’s forearm to stop him from moving away. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” He glared at the empty tracks, wishing for the train to arrive.

“Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Phil took his hand back. Awkward tension filling the empty platform.

After three hours of sleep and a long, hot shower, he had to get dressed and head out again. It was just enough to feel human again. Stopping at the diner, he grabbed coffee for him and Phil and two everything bagels. They were going to need all the help they could get to get through the day.

Phil didn’t mention the conversation from the night before. Not until Saturday lunchtime. The FUBAR job had been wrangled and they were sitting around a lunch of burritos and a gallon of coffee celebrating their victory over Hammer’s shitty commercial security system.

“Can I still fix it?” Phil asked, fiddling with a napkin. Ripping it into tiny, perfect squares.

He didn’t have to ask what he meant. He also didn’t know the answer. Over the last eighteen months, his heart and brain had come to an agreement. Phil wasn’t to blame. He hadn’t known. It was Fury and his merry band of insane scientists. But that didn’t erase the hurt that had etched itself into his heart.

“Yes.” His mouth said without talking to his brain or heart. Apparently it knew him better than he knew himself.

Phil let it drop, picking up on how uncomfortable the whole thing was making Clint. But the small smile tugging at his lips was enough to settle Clint’s raised hackles, a large part of him would always want Phil to be happy.

= + =

It was a slow seduction. Monday morning after the conversation a single Krachiao had found its way to his desk. The pink-purple was a reminder of their first mission. Thailand had been a shitshow. But it was a memorable shitshow. Once, he had confessed to Phil that it had been the mission he realised he more than tolerated his newest handler. 

The next monday was a box of pistachio Fekkas. That had been one of the rare missions that went smoothly. The contact had been where they said they would be, when they said they would be there. The exchange had happened without bloodshed, and the intel had been accurate to the number of bullets that bad guys had had. It was also when Phil had confessed his interest in Clint beyond his role as a specialist.

Thursday night two weeks later, a delivery man from Jiancarlo’s, their first date turned up on his door.

Each present was a reminder of a step forward in their crawl towards being each other’s everything. A reminder that Phil remembered. That he knew Clint down to his very bones.

When a box of Belgian chocolates appeared on a random Wednesday afternoon after a long, hard meeting with Happy Hogan, Clint scooped them up and moved out to Phil’s desk.

“Would you like to join me?” It had been a bit of a ritual for them. When they had a meeting with someone particularly annoying, the other had gotten their favour treat, Belgian chocolates for Clint and powdered donuts for Phil, and just been there for each other. 

The smile on Phil’s face was brilliant. They were going to be okay.


End file.
